


If Our Lives Weren't This

by misha_collins_butt



Series: I Knew I Loved You [3]
Category: Destiel - Supernatural, Sabriel - Supernatural, Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, High School AU, M/M, Sabriel - Supernatural - Freeform, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 06:14:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 49
Words: 57,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3518465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misha_collins_butt/pseuds/misha_collins_butt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Sam have major dad problems, but that's why they so easily relate to their counter parts, Castiel and Gabriel, at their new school in Virginia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In The Beginning...

**Author's Note:**

> Modern day High School AU
> 
> WHOOP!
> 
> I have to admit, it moves pretty slowly in the beginning but it always takes a while for me to get into my own stories

Dean sprints down the hallway at full speed toward his brother's room, his brows furrowed in concern. He bursts trough the door, looking over his brother's face to find tear streaked cheeks and approaches the younger boy with his mouth pressed into a thin line, concern evident in his symmetrical features.

These nightmares need to stop. Their effect on Sam's physical and especially mental well-being is all too visible. And why the hell hadn't these dreams started earlier in life. The fact that he's in high school now makes it a thousand times worse. Not because of homework, no. Sam's the smartest kid Dean knows. And the most efficiently working, at that. But high school is a major point in a person's life; it's important for the development of the adolescent mind, both social and educational. And he may not be the most popular kid, but he sure as hell doesn't get teased, albeit, high school is an emotional period in a teen's life in general.

Every single one of these thoughts bounces hyper-actively against Dean's skull as he strides toward his brother's bed and perches carefully on the edge of the mattress.

Sam turns his head and looks up at his older brother's anxiety-warped features. Dean pulls the younger boy into a gentle hug and sighs inwardly, shaking his head.

"Sammy..." Dean chides dismally. 

"I'm going crazy, Dean," Sam mumbles into his brother's shirt between quiet sobs. 

"Sam," Dean replies sternly, taking the boy by the shoulders and pulling away to look him in the face. "Sam, you are not crazy and you are not going crazy and you are not going to go crazy. You are perfectly normal considering the absolute hell you've been through."

Dean pulls his brother back into his chest, his arm strong around the boy, and continues fervently, "It doesn't matter that you were just a baby, Sammy. You watched your own mother burn. You. Are normal. Your life isn't, but you are."

Sam sniffles and takes a deep, shaky breath in, attempting to dilute the panick. 

"Okay," Sam nods. He'd never intended to actually reply, but his brother is generally expectant of one in a situation like this.

Dean forces Sam to lay back down and brushes a stray brown hair out of the boy's face.

After a minute sitting in silence, Dean asks in a tentative voice, "You okay to go back to sleep?"

Sam nods silently, his gaze shifted downward, and Dean pauses a split second before standing. He pads carefully back through the hallway to his room and clicks the door shut as quietly as possible. 

Dean rakes his fingers through his messy blonde hair and falls heavily back onto his bed. He realises his eyelids aren't as heavy as they were and wishes only for sleep, his brain far wearier than his eyes. He glances to his left and spots his pack of cigarettes resting on his bedside table.

Dean checks that his door is closed, though it's irrational to give a fuck whether his sorry excuse for an asshole father catches him smoking in the house. He decides instead, as he quickly stands and snatches the pack and his lighter from beside the picture of his mother, to simply open the window and turn the overhead fan on. 

Dean picks up a towel from his clothing covered floor and stuffs it in the gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. He switches on the overhead fan but quickly decides the old thing is too noisy and flips the switch back off.

Dean shuffles across his room toward his window and pulls it open. He lights the cigarette and takes a long pull. Then he looks to his right and his lips part when he sees the clock on his bedside table. It reads 12:27. 

Dean breathes in and rolls his eyes, shaking his head. He knows he won't be able to get back to sleep. He's never able to after having to sprint to Sam's room and comfort him. Not to mention the constant worries about Sam's mood swings and the thoughts about the boy's ever-present unwillingness to speak to a therapist about anything keeps Dean from even thinking about closing his eyes. And he knows a hell of a lot better than to expect that the cigarrette will calm him down any more. 

He sighs for the billionth time. This is gonna be a long night.


	2. Where There Is Sadness

"Fuck," Gabriel curses, shaking his hand out aggresively as he attempts to eradicate the pain. He chucks the textbook indignantly across his already messy room and shoves his bleeding finger in his mouth as he reaches for a bandage. 

Gabriel tears open the package with malice but is gentle when he wraps the adhesive over his small wound. 

"Damn textbooks. Papercuts. Bullshit," he mutters as he finishes applying the bandage. He leans back and rakes both his hands through his shoulder-length blonde hair.

His silent daze is broken and his eyes twitch toward his closed door when he hears rising voices from downstairs.

"-cannot blame this on anyone but yourself this time! This. Is on you, dad. And it's gone WAY too far!" Lucifer screams at Chuck. 

Gabe can't quite make out exactly what his father says but he catches bits and pieces of the man's excuse of the day as he obviously tries to keep his voice steady. The monotony of both his ridiculously false-calm voice and of his constant lies gives Gabe a headache.

"...don't know what you're talking ab...obviously taking your own biased emotions out on...not completely fair that you blame...and I don't see a reason...especially when...don't care that you believe it..." Chuck replies far too calmly. Gabe assumes the conversation must be about Castiel. His gaze falters for a second as tears form in his eyes. His brothers are all he has in this shit life and he nearly lost - admittedly his favourite - one last night. 

"You're kidding me, right?!" Lucifer replies, nearly screaming now. "You've just disregarded your own son's life and invalidated his feelings simply because you don't want to take responsibility for something that you are so obviously at fault for! You are pathetic! Any respect that I still had for you, which was very close to zero, has gone straight out the window."

Chuck's voice finally becomes loud enough to hear all of what he is saying.

"You're insane! This was not my doing! He would have pulled this shit whether I was here or not! He's a depressed little fuck with no sense of what's selfish and what's not!"

"HE TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF, YOU ASSHOLE! HE SLIT HIS WRISTS BECAUSE YOU GOT DRUNK, BECAUSE YOU HIT HIM, BECAUSE YOU TOLD HIM HE WAS A WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT AND YOU WISH HE'D NEVER BEEN BORN!"

Something glass crashes onto the floor and a string of curse words reciprocates. 

"...need to calm down...take into account the other people in the house...cause it's completely rational to want to blame...but I just don't see how...fault. It can't be." Chuck speaks quietly again, obviously forcing himself to remain amiable.

"Get out," Lucifer replies coolly. "Get out of this house. And never come back."

There's a long silence before anything else happens. Then Gabe hears the front door open and slam shut behind his father. 

Gabe's lip quivers and presses his hands against his tightly closed eyes to push back the inevitable tears. He rests his forehead in his hands and leans his elbows on his thighs. He continues to squeeze his eyes shut and he ignores the footsteps he knows are Lucifer's padding up the creaky stairs.

His door clicks open.

"Gabe. He's gone now," Lucifer says softly and approaches Gabe. He crouches in front of his younger brother. "It's okay. He's gone."

Gabe nods into his hand and breathes in, attempting to remain composed but fails miserably and lets out a violent sob. Lucifer hugs him roughly and whispers soothing nonsense. 

"I...can't...do this...anymore," Gabe gasps out between sobs. 

"I know, Gabriel. I know," Lucifer whispers chidingly. "But you have to calm down. Calm down, Gabe. You need to stay calm for Castiel's sake."

Gabe nods and his hands slip from his face. His brother releases him and Gabe averts his gaze.

Lucifer opens his mouth and pauses before asking, "You want to see him?"

Gabe nods again and stands. The hospital is actually the last place he wants to go right now, but he desperately wants to assure himself that his brother is okay and for that to happen, he needs to see Castiel with his own eyes


	3. When Sammy Meets a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel and Sam meet and possibly realise their deep and abiding love for eachother.

Sam slams the Impala door shut and steps up onto the curb. He slings his backpack over one shoulder and walks beside his brother toward the school.

"Well...no it's just...all I see and hear and feel is...fire. And then her face emerges from the flames and she screams at the top of her lungs, begging me to help," Sam offers a weak explanation.

He's told his older brother about the recurring nightmare before but Dean insists on asking once every two weeks to see if and how it may have changed. Sam knows Dean just wants to make the nightmare stop and that he's trying his best to let Sam know that the older boy is there for him. It's just gotten a little annoying.

"Hm," Dean nods, then sighs, obviously failing still to conjure a viable solution to his brother's consistent fear of sleeping.

Sam feels in his pockets for his wallet. They'd gotten to school late again - late enough that it was lunch time already - and he needed a way to avoid school food. 

"Shit," Sam curses and brings his backpack across his chest to find the damn thing.

Unfortunately, this distracts him from walking. 

Sam's shoulder slams into a solid mass and he looks down at the blonde haired young man who seems to be about his age. He's short, lean but muscular, and his hair is a shade of honey blonde you usually don't see on someone's head. But the hair isn't what catches Sam's attention.

The boy's eyes are a shade of golden green with reddish-brown dots sprinkled intricately throughout. Sam's lips part slightly as he gazes down into those eyes and completely forgets to apologise in his moment of astonishment.

"Sorry, kiddo. My bad. I'm a real klutz," the blonde boy says, smirking slightly. His voice rattles Sam out of his silent daze.

"I'm so sorry. I wasn't paying at-" Sam starts to apologise as well. The other boy holds a hand up and smiles warmly.

"Really. It's fine," he says then extends his hand toward Sam. 

Sam shakes it, and isn't surprised to find that the young man's hand is firm and careful.

"I'm Gabriel," the boy says, still smiling. "I don't think I've seen you around here before."

"Sam. We just moved here from Kansas," Sam replies, still stunned by those molten honey eyes. They light up when Gabriel smiles, Sam notices.

"All the way from Kansas?" Gabriel asks, obviously genuinely surprised. "How's not being landlocked going for ya?" He jokes.

Sam smiles, enjoying the corny attempt at humour. He scratches the back of his neck and answers playfully, "Well, I did get to see the Atlantic Ocean. I don't think I've ever seen that much water in one place before."

The blonde boy chuckles and nods. 

"Yeah, it can get a little troublesome, sometimes," Gabriel replies. 

The two stare at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time - at least, for Dean's liking - and Dean clears his throat.

"Gotta get moving, Sammy," Dean chides, cocking his head toward the school.

"Right," Sam replies and bites his lip. He switches his gaze back toward Gabe. "I'll see you around."

"Of course, kiddo. Nice meeting you, by the way," Gabriel says to Sam, a cockily auspicious look on his face.

Sam enters the school with his brother, thinking only about Gabriel's golden eyes, the search for his wallet completely forgotten.


	4. Sleeping Castiel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel finally wakes after two entire day's sleeping. But no one can blame him. Getting home from the hospital is exhausting, after all.

Someone yanks the blinds open and Castiel winces dramatically in order to emphasise his antipathy for the rude awakening.

He rolls over and curls into himself, facing away from the sunlight and pulling the comforter over his head.

"Castiel, you must wake up. It's crucial that you take part in this therapy. We are all worried about you and we only want you to get better," Micheal castigates. "Not to mention how unhealthy this constant sleeping is."

Michael jerks the blanket from Castiel's hand and stares disapprovingly down at the boy. Castiel gazes back up, his eyes bored, and raises his brows fervently. 

Cas struggles, but succeeds, to sit up and rake his fingers through the mop of brown hair that resides atop his head. He sighs, scratching at the edge of the tattoo that spreads over his back. 

"Mike, I really just don't have the energy for this," he finally replies. "I want to sleep. I want to leave all my...bullshit and emotions behind and fly to...I don't know...fuckin' Narnia or some shit. I don't want to deal with some dude who went through psychology training so he could stare at me for fifteen minutes, then ask me a billion pointless questions, the answers to which he knows are lies."

"That excuse was completely eloquent up until right after 'fly to'," Michael pats Cas on the cheek and starts toward the bureau to grab a shirt and some jeans for Cas that aren't three days old. "Get up! Refusing to move won't stop therapy from happening."

Michael throws a shirt and a pair of sweatpants across the room and they land limply across Castiel's lap. Michael stares at his brother again before leaving to let him dress.

Cas sighs. It's just not worth it. Waking up isn't worth it. Getting dressed isn't worth it. Leaving his room and the house isn't worth it. Talking about his deepest, darkest secrets with some awkwardly quiet shithole with a degree in psychology who's just gonna shove his thumbs up his ass and dance around like a retarded parrot isn't worth it. Having any hope that the restraining order against Chuck that Lucifer requested is going to be granted without having to go to court isn't worth it. Hell, it's completely pointless. 

Cas pulls off his dirty shirt and balls it up, throwing it lazily across the room into the corner where he keeps dirty clothes. He pulls on the black sweatpants and begins the daily search for a pair of shoes that match. When he spots the second shoe, he shoves his foot in and ties the laces with shaky fingers. Cas checks the stitches on either arm to make sure nothing is infected and sighs at the fact that he will inevitably have scars. He just didn't think he would fail, but he did. 

It's not as if Cas doesn't accept the consequences, but he's angry that he didn't try harder. 

Cas only glances sidelong toward the mirror on his right as he passes it. He knows he should fix his hair so he can seem at least presentable, but he simply doesn't give a fuck anymore.

"Where's Gabriel?" Cas inquires of Micheal as he shuffles into the kitchen.

"Eat," Mike says, handing Cas a piece of slightly burnt toast, then answers, "He's at school, Castiel. Remember? It's Wednesday."

Castiel furrows his brows and whips his head up to stare incredulously at his older brother. 

"Two days?" Cas asks quietly. He stands quickly and rushes toward the refrigerator where the calendar hangs. As if that will help him. He turns around and stares at Mike again. "I was asleep for two days?"

Michael just stares at the younger boy, his mouth pressed into a line, contemplating whether to answer that honestly. He takes a breath and opens his mouth but no sound comes out.

"You woke two or three times, relatively disoriented. I told you that you were just dreaming which seemed to calm you and you would go back to sleep less than a minute later," Mike explains, scratching his cheek. But Castiel knows better. That's his brother's tell.

"You're lying. I didn't wake at all, did I," Castiel states accusingly, his features deviated into something along the lines of disappointment and an obvious sense of betrayal.

Mike sighs defeatedly.

"No, Castiel," he replies, and offers a sad smile. "Now, eat. You've not eaten in two days. Weight loss is the last thing you need now."


	5. Dean Defends Sammy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean beats John up and leaves the house

"Fuck you!" John yells - slurs, really. "Fuck you and your pathetic little brother. Fuck him especially! He's the reason she's dead! It's his fault!"

"Say his name! Say his fuckin' name, you worthless little shit!" Dean screams back. He'd tried to keep his voice from rising, his brother being just upstairs. But he can't control the temper that's been boiling inside of him. "He is your son, you pathetic, sorry-excuse-for-a-father! So say it! Say! His! Name!"

"You think I don't know my own son's name-"

"I think you're too scared to say your own son's name because you can't handle the fact that you being an alcoholic and a mean-ass drunk is affecting him so negatively!"

"How! How is this affecting him! How does it affect you?!" 

Dean punches the wall so hard that it dents, and he's sure he's broken at least two fingers, but he's too furious to care.

"HOW DO YOU NOT SEE HOW THIS AFFECTS EITHER OF US!"

"Give me one reason I should stop," John points out idiotically, then takes another pull of whatever the alcohol of the night is from his flask.

"You really don't give a fuck if you lose both of your sons?" Dean ask-yells incredulously.

John stares at the young man and opens his mouth a few times to say something but nothing makes it out. 

"You can't even answer the damn question. You can't even THINK about answering the question without wondering if you should lie!" Dean's answer to John's silence starts out calmly but becomes louder as he loses control again.

John's lower lip wobbles slightly. Dean stares at the man, his teeth and fists clenched, his brows low over his eyes which are not exactly expectant. His features are twisted with absolute rage and an obstinate disgust.

Dean doesn't contemplate the sudden movement that John makes, but he does feel the blow that the back of his father's hand delivers across his cheek.

Dean stares, mouth hanging open, completely aporetic. Then he lunges at the other man, vehemently infuriated. 

Dean tackles his father to the ground and punches the damn drunk in the nose. He doesn't stop when he hears the man's jaw crack, or even when he hears John groan after splitting open his eyebrow. 

But when John nears unconsciousness, Dean stands, breathing heavily, and walks calmly toward the the kitchen. He grabs his cellphone, his panting subdued, and walks upstairs.

Dean knocks gently on his brother's open door and tells him to call Gabe, whom the younger boy's become close to over the past two weeks.

"Dean, what happened to your cheek," Sam asks, eyes wide with panick as he stares incredulously at the red mark that's already starting to bruise.

"It's nothing, Sammy," Dean replies chidingly. 'Just pack some clothes and meet me in the kitchen,' is what he meant to say next but what comes out is, "Just be brave for me, huh?"

Sam nods compliantly and Dean stands there a second longer, watching his brother quickly grasp at shirts and jeans and shove it all in his backpack.

Dean takes shaky, stumbling strides toward his room, thankful that his brother makes friends so easily.


	6. Gabe Can Be Honest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean are introduced to the Shurley family, whom they'll be living with for an indefinite amount of time.

"I'll just sleep on the couch, it's fine," Dean insists. Gabe suddenly wonders how Sam lives with the guy all the time. Dean is kind, yes, but hard-headed and frustrating. 

Gabe just shrugs, wanting to drop the subject. 

"Alright. Not all that comfortable but I guess..." Gabriel trails off, not knowing how to properly culminate the subtle judgement.

Gabe turns and smiles at Sam, wrapping his arm around the boy's shoulders. 

"Bed or floor?" Gabe asks, expecting Sam to understand. But Sam just shifts his eyes toward Gabe and furrows his brows slightly, frowning.

"You're sleepin' in my room, Samsquatch," Gabe explains, on the verge of exasperation.

"Oh, uh...floor?" Sam replies, clearly unsure of what the other boy wants to hear.

"Too bad I'm making you sleep on the bed," Gabe smirks.

Gabriel leads Sam upstairs and to his room. Sam's eyebrows shoot up, probably in surprise, when he sees the band posters spread across Gabe's walls and stuck to his ceiling.

"You...really like jazz," Sam points out breathlessly. 

"Hm? Oh, right. Yeah, it's, uh...it's a problem," Gabe says, scratching his head lightly.

"Are you kidding? That's not a problem, that is a...way of life," Sam replies excitedly. "An excellent way of life..." He pauses to stare, lips parted, then continues. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"It...never came up?" Gabe shrugs, kind of embarrassed. 

A small, high-pitched laugh bubbles up in Sam's throat as he smiles down at the other boy. Gabe blushes lightly at the presence of Sam's gorgeous grin and at the presence of Sam in his room.

The thing is, Gabriel knows he's not straight. Not necessarily gay, though, either. But, while he's most likely bisexual, he does tend to have a stronger attraction to men. All of his brothers and most of his friends accepted his sexuality, which made up for his father's despicable homophobic behaviour, but he was still crushed by Chuck's anger toward him. He knows it's irrational to care what his father thinks, considering the man is a pathetic twat, but he cares nevertheless. And now he's hoping Sam doesn't leave or become uncomfortable when he finds out about Gabe. 

Not to mention the fact that Gabe feels incredibly guilty for having a crush on Sam. He knows that, chances are, Sam is straight as a line drawn by very efficient line-drawing computer. He's never felt guilty about having a crush on a straight man either. So the entire situation is stressful for him.

"Gabe?" Sam's voice rips Gabe out of his subconscious and he takes a sharp breath in as he is jolted back into reality. Gabe raises his eyebrows lightly and looks back up at Sam.

"Huh?" Gabe asks.

"I said, where should I put my stuff," Sam explains, stifling an amused smile.

"Oh, anywhere is fine," Gabe answers in a small voice.

After a few seconds of silence where neither really knows what to say, Sam finally looks back up at Gabe from his spot sitting on the bed and says, "Thank you...for letting us stay here, Gabe...thank you."

Sam hesitates, then moves his long arms and folds Gabe into a tight hug.

"Thank you so much," he says again.

"Hey, it's no problem, kiddo," Gabe says quietly. He pauses, then says, "It's just...I can relate, Sam. And I know how difficult not having a real father can be."

Sam's brows shoot up and his lips part slightly as he and Gabe hold each other for a second longer.

When they release each other, Gabriel asks Sam if he wants the grand tour.

"Of course," Sam says lightly.

Gabe leads Sam out of his room and down to the end of the hallway.

"This is where we begin the spectacular tour of the Shurley house!" Gabe begins dramatically and Sam laughs.

"This is my big brother Michael's room," Gabe continues, waving his hand at a closed door on the right. He points lazily to his room on the left and says, "And you've seen my room already."

They come to the stairs and Gabe points toward his right again at a giant bathroom.

"That's obviously a bathroom," Gabe says pointedly and wiggles his eyebrows. Sam laughs, raising his own eyebrows. They walk on and Gabe notices that Sam furrows his brows when they walk back down the stairs instead of continuing through the upstairs hallway. Gabe assumes Sam must have noticed they skipped two rooms at the other end of the hallway.

Gabe ignores the worry that comes with the thought of what Sam must be thinking and proceeds to show Sam the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom. Sam seems confused when they walk through a door to the basement.

"The game room is down here," Gabriel explains quickly. "We've got a ping-pong table, some old-fashioned video games, pinball, and a flatscreen twice the size of the one upstairs in the den," Gabe offers a wide, flirtatious grin and adds, "And an extra couch."

Sam does something very unexpected at that comment - he blushes and stifles a smile. Gabe hides any reaction he may have had to that turn of events. He laughs lightly when Sam hides his face.

"Over there is my oldest bother's room. His name is Lucifer. He, uh...he takes good care of us. He's like the father we never had," Gabe explains, nodding quickly and furrowing his brows. 

Sam watches Gabe space out for a second, staring at his honey-gold eyes. Gabe seems to space out a lot.

Gabriel notices Sam staring and his eyes twitch toward the taller boy's face. Gabe smiles lightly and tilts his head.

"Dean is like that, I think," Gabe says to him and Sam nods.

"Yeah. Yeah he is," Sam discloses.

They stand in a silence that isn't necessarily uncomfortable, then Gabe breaks it and says, "Look, I'm really open about this, and I don't know whether anyone else has told you yet but-"

"You're bi?" Sam finishes, smiling down at the other boy and nearly laughing when Gabe's lips part and his eyes widen.

"Uh...yeah," Gabe clears his throat and adds, "Yes, actually. Who...told you?"

"Oh, no one told me...but can I ask you something?" Sam inquires tentatively.

"Of course, anything," Gabe says, eyebrows pulled in.

"Does your dad...ever get mad at you for being bi?" Sam asks, lowering his gaze and searching the floor.

Gabe's lips part and he stares, forgetting to answer. After a minute he says, "Yes, actually."

When Sam doesn't say anything else, Gabe cranes his neck and attempts to get Sam to look at him.

"Sam? Are you...?" Gabe asks, suppressing a smile.

"What?! No!" Sam shakes his head slightly. "No...I don't think so, anyway."

Gabe wants to kiss Sam. NOW. He wants to prove to the other boy how amazing it is to be with another man. He wants to take Sam's breath away; sweep him off his feet and take him for a fuckin' magic carpet ride. He wants to shove him up against the wall and hold him there. He wants to run his fingers through that long brown hair and lock his fingers around a few strands of it so he can pull Sam's head back and kiss the boy's neck. He wants to do all these things. But he doesn't. Sam isn't sure and, for the first time in probably ever, Gabe wants to respect that. He doesn't feel the absolute and conflagrant obligation to impose.

Gabe realises he's staring only when he notices Sam staring back. He then realises how utterly close together they are. Sam's eyes find Gabe's again and Gabe forgets how to breathe. Those eyes. Those hazel-amber eyes. 

Gabe leans forward slightly. 

"No, he's still asleep," Lucifer's voice travels down the stairs along with the sound of the wood creaking under his feet as he walks toward them. "And when he's awake, he doesn't want to get out of bed or, hell, even move. It's all that pathetic drunk's f-"

Lucifer stops mid sentence and stares at the two boys standing there, staring back. 

"What are you..." Lucifer begins and hides a small smirk, then adds, "Oh, this is cute."

"I'm just showing Sam around the house, asswad," Gabe retorts easily. 

"Uh-huh," Lucifer vindicates skeptically. "Whatever. Scram, blondey, I've got phone calls to finish."

Gabe sticks out his tongue and grasps Sam's arm as he leads the boy back upstairs. He sometimes hates that he lives in a house with four other people - three, now. Nonetheless, Gabriel supposes he should have expected his eldest brother to intrude; it is, after, where the man's bedroom is. And Gabe really shouldn't have expected to be able to have any alone time with Sam in a house with aforementioned amount of people still here anyway. He should have known better considering it doesn't matter how many people are in the house - someone will always find a way to interupt whatever he's doing.

When they return, Dean greets them, along with Mike who apparently invited Ruby and Meg over - okay, make that six.  
As if they didn't have enough people in the house already.

It isn't that Gabe dislikes the sisters. They just seem cocky and secretive to him - and that says a lot; Gabe is the cockiest of all his brothers. Anyway, they're attached at the hip and they communicate without even talking. It doesn't help how eerily capable they both are at finding the exact words that will shit on your dreams in the blink of an eye. But, whatever, Gabe thinks. 

Mike seems to enjoy their company for one reason or the other and that's the older man's business. They tend not to acknowledge Gabe's existance anyway. Maybe they don't like Gabe in return. Gabriel hopes they don't. But they seem to notice Sam as soon as he walks into the room.

Gabriel feels an insistent pang of jealousy as they crowd around the taller boy - especially Ruby, strangely enough - and drag him to the couch, bombarding him with millions of questions per second.

"Uh..." Sam attempts to answer and Gabe smiles when he notices how uncomfortable Sam seems. "I think I'm going to go...pet the cat."

The girls look at each other in utter confusion and release their grips on Sam as he stands. Sam looks at Gabe with wide eyes and, as soon as they're out of earshot, asks incredulously, "Who ARE those chicks?"

Gabe laughs and answers, amused, "The husky sounding one is Meg, the whiny sounding one is Ruby..." He pauses dramatically then adds, "The sarcastic sounding one is both of them."

Gabe smiles auspiciously when Sam's features warp in disgust and irritation.

"Ah, don't worry about them. As long as you ignore them, they'll ignore you right back," Gabe doesn't know this for sure, but he feels the need to console the other boy. 

They head back to Gabe's room and sit on his bed where Gabe drops a board game.

"Monopoly," Sam says dubiously and looks up at Gabe, eyebrows pulled in as he suppresses a judging smile.

"Yes, what's wrong with Monopoly," Gabe answers in mock disappointment, getting a laugh out of Sam. They set the game up together and begin the journey of Monopoly.


	7. Sam Gets to Know Gabe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam realises how highly Gabe thinks of him.

Sam opens his eyes slowly and finds that he's rolled all the way to the edge of the bed. He doesn't mind, however, when he sees it's the side of the bed where he can watch Gabriel sleep from the boy's spot on the floor. He doesn't think it's creepy...okay, a little stalkerish maybe. But watching the other boy sleep is relaxing. Gabe's usually smirking mouth and alert eyes are calm when he's asleep, and this makes Sam smile. It's just cute how Gabriel's features are smoother and less cocky all the time - it's downright adorable.

Sam watches the boy's chest move silently and attempts to make it look like he's sleeping when Gabe reaches up and rubs his eye. Sam continues to peek at the other young man, smiling sheepishly when Gabe is too quick to notice that he's not actually sleeping.

"It's not nice to pretend, Sammitch," Gabe scolds playfully. He stands and crouches in front of Sam, and Sam just stares at the colours in Gabe's golden green eyes. 

Without conscience, Sam reaches a tired hand out and strokes his thumb across Gabe's cheek bone. He realises he's doing it only when Gabe averts his gaze, looking down and blushing, and Sam retracts his hand and mumbles a bashful apology.

But Gabriel just smiles. 

"Don't apologise. My motto is, just do whatever the hell you wanna do in this shitty life, and thank whatever you believe in that it's a short one," Gabe consoles and tilts his head slightly.

Sam furrows his brows, but nods his head in understanding. 

"Are you sure you're okay sleeping on the floor, though?" Sam asks for the hundredth time, feeling guilty. Gabe rolls his eyes and groans.

"Sam. The floor is just as comfortable as this bed, if not more comfortable," Gabe replies, frustrated but laughing.

"Then why am I not sleeping down there?" Sam laughs, amused by Gabe's playful exasperation.

Gabe stands, and starts, "Because you're." He walks backward and stops when his back hits the wall. "Up." He runs toward the bed and leaps over Sam, landing directly next to the other boy and twisting to face him. "Here." He whispers the last part.

Sam's breath hitches when he notices, yet again, how close the two are. He suddenly feels the very foreign urge to kiss Gabe. But he doesn't know if Gabe likes him. The fact that Gabriel told Sam about his sexual orientation shows Sam that Gabe doesn't want him to be uncomfortable around him, but he can't decipher whether that means the other boy likes Sam. It's killing him, not knowing. So he doesn't lean forward. He doesn't kiss Gabe breathless. He doesn't cuddle up under the other boy's chin and drift back off to sleep. He doesn't understand where this urge is coming from but he's also far too hesitant to act on it. 

They sit in silence, neither boy knows for how long, staring into each other's eyes, until someone knocks on the door and Gabe's eyes widen. 

He panicks, shouting, "Just a second," and literally jumps off the bed. He runs to the door and opens it, his features quickly switching from panick to easy nonchalance. 

"We're ordering pizza for breakfast, what do you want," comes a quiet voice from around the corner. Sam can't seem to identify it or attach it to anybody he's met thus far. The voice seems bored or exhausted. But there's also a faint bubbliness to it.

"Sam, what do like on your pizza," Gabe calls softly from the doorway.

"Oh, I don't eat pizza," Sam replies and hides a smile when Gabe gives him a strange look then turns and tells whomever is at the door what he wants.

When Gabe shuts the door, Sam looks at him, disconcerted by the presence of someone he's not met.

"Who was that," Sam asks quietly as Gabe hops back on the bed and sits cross-legged, facing Sam.

Gabe sighs and bites his lip, evading his golden gaze as much as possible.

Then he says, "My younger brother, Castiel. He's the youngest..."

Sam furrows his brows lightly, his face twisting into something along the lines of confusion and asks, "Why didn't you ever introduce me to him." 

Sam immediately regrets asking the question, though, when Gabriel looks back at him with watery eyes and a careless frown.

Gabe takes a deep breath before explaining.

"He's going through some stuff right now. I never meant to...lie to you, or something. We a just thought it would be best to not overwhelm him with new people," Gabe says, his voice breaking slightly.

Sam sits up, mimicking Gabe's pose, and stares guiltily at the other boy, then looks down and bites his lower lip. He hadn't realised. 

Sam passingly wonders about asking what happened to Castiel but he feels bad even thinking about doing that when he realises how abhorrently this must be affecting Gabe. 

"I'm so sorry," Sam replies quietly. "I couldn't imagine..."

Gabe raises his eyebrows in what must be surprise and says in a small voice, "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For not acting like you understand."

What? Sam furrows his brows again, not sure what the other boy is getting at.

"Well...I don't," Sam replies, nearly laughing at the ridiculous idea that he could possibly know what it feels like to have a brother who apparently is too depressed to even meet anyone new.

Gabriel's arms move so suddenly that Sam doesn't have time to process where their moving to until he feels them wrapped tightly around his neck and feels Gabe's chin hooked on the back of his shoulder. It takes Sam a second, then he wraps his long arms around Gabe's waist and cranes his neck to lean his head against the shorter boy's shoulder.

"You're the most amazing person I've ever met," Gabe whispers and his fingers dig into Sam's shirt.

Sam nearly laughs. 

"I doubt that," he says as he pulls back. His hands remain gently on Gabe's waist. 

Gabe narrows his eyes and suppresses a smirk.

"Why would you say that?" Gabe asks lightly.

"Because..." Sam closes his mouth and looks away, shaking his head. He laughs defensively and tries again. "Because, Gabe, I have problems. My mum died in a house fire when I was just 6 months old and my dad blames it on me. I have...nightmares about it... EVERY NIGHT! And..." He trails off, shaking his head again, almost unnoticeably. 

"Are you trying to scare me off, Sam? Because it's not working," Gabriel replies in a playfully chiding tone, stifling a laugh.

Sam frowns and Gabe loses any playfulness he had in his voice. Gabriel takes a deep breath and his hand lands lightly on Sam's cheek, his thumb trailing across the boy's cheekbone.

"I'm not trying to invalidate what you said, Sam. And I'm not implying that you're trying to push me away. Or that we were this close to begin with," Gabe says quietly, then continues. "I'm just saying, everyone has problems. Maybe not as bad as yours. Maybe worse." He laughs lightly. "And trust me, I've met worse. And, even then, no one could possibly have the same problems as you. Maybe a similar situation, but not the same exact feelings, right?"

Sam stares without replying. He tries to nod but he's paralysed by Gabe's speech and by the the boy's sensitive personality.

Gabe pulls his eyebrows in and locks his eyes on Sam's.

"You having 'problems' is not going to make me dislike you. It's not going to make me think you're any less of a human being, much less any less of an amazing one."

Gabe smiles and pulls Sam back into a hug, then adds, laughing, "And you really should learn to accept a compliment, Sammitch."


	8. When Cas Falls For Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas may have only known Dean for two days, but for whatever reason, Cas has fallen for the other man.

Castiel nearly slams the phone down and shuffles angrily back into the den, wondering both why the man who took his order was so spectacularly stupid and why Dean's strange younger brother doesn't eat pizza. Either way, he is really NOT in the mood to deal with people. But his eyes soften when he walks toward the couch and Dean's seemingly interminable smile falls.

"What's wrong?" Dean asks gently, obviously anxious about the look on Cas' face.

Cas does his best to smile at the other man as he plops back down next to him.

"Nothing, Dean," Castiel replies, shaking his head. "Just...people."

Dean nods, understanding Castiel's unfaltering hate of the general population.

They sit in comfortable silence together and Castiel's mind drifts off to a state of subconscious. He thinks about how Dean is the only person Cas has truly talked to about everything that's happened, not including Gabe. Even Michael and Lucifer don't have all the facts. But for whatever damn reason, Dean can get Cas to talk. Dean has some kind of special powers or some shit. He has a way of getting Cas to spill everything he's been holding in. 

In just the past two days in which they've been in the same house together, Castiel has told Dean things he could have only ever told Gabriel. He's cried, sobbed even. He's stared off into space, sitting in silence for hours in a row next Dean, wishing he could lean his head on the other man's shoulder and drift off to sleep. He's become belligerent toward no one in particular - probably just from talking about something that makes him angry. Hell, Dean's made him laugh for the first time in months, maybe even harder than he has in several years.

And Cas really has to admit that he's developing strong feelings for Dean. He already knew he was gay, so it doesn't come as a surprise that he has romantic feelings toward another man. And specifically toward someone like Dean, considering how alike Dean and Cas are.

But Cas never just...falls for someone. Especially not in just two days.

There's just...something about Dean. He's sensitive, protective, understanding. And no matter what Cas tells the other man about his life, Dean is perennially, unconditionally accepting of Cas. No one's ever been that way with him.

And it gets to him.

"Cas," Dean says quietly and Cas whips his head to the right as he's flung back into reality. Cas notices how thoroughly he enjoys his nickname rolling off of Dean's tongue.

"Yeah," he replies shortly, wanting to hear the other man's voice again. He doesn't care that he's known Dean for two days. And he doesn't care that Dean is so obviously straight. Something draws Cas to the other man. Maybe the fact that Dean got so innocently lost looking for the bathroom upstairs when the one downstairs was taken and ended up knocking on Cas' door instead. Maybe the fact that, no matter what, nothing can get Cas out of bed, but some kind of...force pulled Cas out of bed and toward the door; made him open it to see who it was.

Cas recalls how blatantly stunned he was by the inexorably gorgeous, mossy-jade green eyes he was met with. He remembers how spectacular that sheepish smile Dean gave when he realised it was someone's room was. He evokes the memory of how their first conversation started with Dean standing bashfully in his doorway and apologising repeatedly before placidly asking why he's not been introduced to Cas.

Cas suddenly also remembers he's talking to Dean right now. He really needs to stop allowing his mind to drift off.

"I'm sorry, I...to be completely honest, my mind was elsewhere," Cas says gently and blushes when Dean grins.

"I could tell," Dean replies thoughtfully, and doesn't bother to recall what he'd been saying.

"Dean, can I be honest with you," Cas asks, smiling a little.

"You've been honest so far, Cas," Dean laughs. "Don't know why you'd stop now."

Cas offers a small smile and dips his head, trying to breathe deeply enough to dilute the panick rising in his chest. He just needs to say it. He can say it. He's gonna say it. 

Cas breathes in once more before starting.

"I know you're..." Cas pauses, smiling and blushing, and shakes his head quickly. He laughs and says, "Nevermind."

"Awh, Cas, come on," Dean scolds. He gazes over at Cas for a second and shifts suddenly so he's sitting cross-legged, facing Castiel. He leans forward, places his index finger against the left side of Cas's face, and presses so Cas is looking at him. He furrows his brows and tilts his head.

"Tell me," Dean adds quietly. "You can tell me."

Cas' crystalline blue eyes lock on Dean's hunter-green ones, his lips parted and his cheeks burning pink.

'I know I've known you for two days and that what I'm about to admit to is spectacularly ridiculous because you're straight as a stick and I have absolutely no chance, whatsoever, but I am...indissolubly and irrevocably in love with you' is what Cas means to say but what comes out is, "You're a great friend, Dean...and I'm happy I met you. Happy that our brothers are both complete idiots for each other. I haven't had a friend like you you in a long time."

Dean smiles warmly across the space between them at Cas and chuckles just as affably.

And Dean remains clueless.

He should have just said it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually completely redid this chapter because, long story short, it turned out really strange sounding the first time. Sorry.


	9. In Dean's Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a continuation of the last chapter but under Dean's POV

Dean doesn't understand why Cas would lie to him like that.

He knows Cas is lying. His tell is his eyes dropping. Dean's only known Cas for two days but he's a quick learner and he knows.

He knows a lot of things.

Like how Cas thinks Dean's straight, when, in reality, Dean is thoroughly question his own sexuality. He knows Cas has the biggest, most obvious fucking crush on Dean and it's so adorable and Dean hates that he can't admit that. Dean also happens to know when Cas is lying, and, right now, he's definitely lying.

Lying, as in, Cas wanted to say something different. Whatever he said wasn't a lie, he's obviously genuinely grateful to have Dean as a friend. But Cas was also very intent on saying something else that he ended up not saying.

And Dean just hates that.

He can't bring himself to speak again, as he's a bit lost to the world, thinking about the fucked up way they met. How he never got the house tour and ended up getting turned around upstairs while looking for a bathroom and instead finding this treasure of a man.

He remembers feeling guilty and most definitely bashful about the entire mess until he'd realised that he'd not yet been introduced to Castiel and his curiousity got the better of him. And so did his big mouth.

But Cas hadn't been annoyed by the questions, had very amiably allowed Dean into his life, and, if Dean hadn't been unsure of his heterosexuality before, then that's about the time when he started completely questioning it.

Cas just does something to him, scrambles his brain, misplaces his thoughts, flips switches in him that are rusty and dust-ridden, brings out a side of Dean that Dean doesn't think _he_  even he knew he had.

He very suddenly realises he hasn't spoken in a while when he notices Cas staring wide-eyed at him, seeming a bit worried.

"I'm...sorry, Cas...I'm a little out of it right now. Um...yeah, wow, man...that's....yeah. I'm glad we're friends. I'm happy to be here for you. Ya know? I..." He's rambling.

 _Stop it_.

He watches Cas' heart break a little through those blue eyes and his own heart tears open a bit. He doesn't want Cas to be sad like that but he also doesn't know what he wants with Cas, physically. He may or may not currently want to kiss the dark-haired boy. Which is a strange feeling.

Not like he's never, ever, in his entire life, been attracted to another male. But he sure as hell hasn't been attracted the way he is to Cas.

He realises Cas is talking again and nods, tuning back into his friend's rambling. He enjoys listening to it, hearing Cas' voice.

It's gravelly and low, slightly surprising for a man of his age but not all that startling.

"...and I'm sorry if I sound really clingy...or anything. I just like being around you...if...that's not too weird," Cas finishes and Dean thinks he gets the jest of it. 

 _Yeah, no, not too obvious, there, Cas_.

"No, of course. It's fine."

Dean shakes his head internally.

What is he going to do about...this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also redid this one because it was supposed to be connected to the last chapter but whatever the hell I was thinking of doing...just...didn't work out. So yeah.


	10. Castiel the Hopeless Romantic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe doesn't exactly mind dealing with Castiel's mood swings, but he doesn't have the experience to help Cas this time, much less give him advice as to wait to do.
> 
> Fortunately, there's Sam.

"Gabe, I don't...I don't know what to do," Cas tilts his head down and a single tear lands on Gabe's comforter.

Gabriel pulls his brother into a tight hug, not wanting to watch him cry - half the reason being that he can't stand to see such a sweet, innocent being cry over something like this, and the other half being that seeing Cas cry will make him cry. And he needs to be strong for Castiel. He needs to show Cas that he is someone the younger boy can come to.

"Wanna know what I think, lil' brother?" Gabe asks gently, continuing without an answer from Cas. "I think you need to be brave. I think you need to fight for it to be real. I think you shouldn't assume things because that just capriciously makes every little situation into a big, scary one and makes you freak out just like this."

Cas doesn't reply, though. He just sniffles against Gabe's shirt, and Gabe wonders why the hell he's getting so worked up over someone who's so obviously straight.

"I dreamt about telling him, Gabe! It felt way too real," Castiel gasps through an entirely new bout of sobs. "I dreamt...about saying to his face that I was in love with him. It was terrifying and all he did was sit there and stare, gaping, at me."

"Cas, stop this! It's getting you nowhere! Telling him in real life is the only logical way to get rid of this," Gabe looks down into his cowering brother's eyes and runs his hand over the top of the brown mop of hair on Cas' head. He adds softly, "Do whatever the hell you want to do in this shitty life and th-"

"Thank whatever you believe in that it's a short one, I know," Cas cuts him off, then sniffles and continues. "I know, Gabe. But that's a lot easier said than done."

Gabe offers a sad smile, tilting his head, and continues to run his hand over Cas's hair. He doesn't know why Cas is so different from all his siblings, family members, friends...everyone, really. It can't be the depression. 

1 in 5, Gabe recites the statistics to himself - or rather, reassures himself of them.

Cas takes a deep breath, probably trying to calm down. 

"Gabe, what happens when he tells me to fuck off, that he doesn't accept people who aren't straight? What then? We're living. In the same house together," Cas' voice breaks on the last two words and he looks back down at his opens that rest on his lap. Then he adds defeatedly, "It's only been a few days, but I know I love him. He got me to laugh,Gabe. And I can't stand how absolutely oblivious he is."

Tears form in both of Gabriel's eyes and he swipe the heels of his hand over them to eliminate the evidence. He has to be strong. For Cas.

Gabe doesn't think crying necessarily means he's weak. He sure as hell doesn't think Cas is weak - Castiel is the strongest person he knows; the bravest, too. But he doesn't want Castiel to seem him crying because he knows better than that; because he knows it will set Cas off, make him feel guilty. Make him feel like a burden. It would make Cas put himself down and feel worthless. So, even though none of these emotions, while still completely valid, are rational or true, Gabe doesn't want to make Cas feel them. That wouldn't be fair.

So he pulls Cas into another hug and, voice wavering, says, "That's not how he is Cas. His brother is questioning. Sam thinks he might be bi, and he knows that Dean knows this. And Dean obviously still loves his brother." He tightens his arms around Cas' shoulders and whispers, "Be. Brave. Cas...please."

A soft knock on the door tears Gabe away from Castiel. He gently stands and pads over to the closed door, wondering what the hell his brother could possibly want now. It has to be Michael, he thinks to himself. He's the only one who ever knocks. And I am really not in the mood to deal with his ridiculously perennial staidness.

He opens the door, averting his eyes downward, and says in an annoyed voice, "What do you want, Michael."

When no one answers, though, Gabriel looks up, his brows pulled in, and his golden gaze locks onto a reddish-green hazel one that's topped by nearly shoulder length brown hair.

Sam smiles lightly and says, "I'm not Michael as far as I know."

Gabe rolls his eyes but smiles and asks, "Wait, why the hell did you knock?"

"Well...the door was closed..." Sam replies like it's the most obvious thing in the world. 

"Oh my god, Sam," Gabe says in mock exasperation. He smiles and waves his hand toward the inside of his room. "Come on in, weirdo."

Sam's eyes widen a little and he glances back at Gabe.

"Did I...interupt-"

"No! No, not at all," Gabe answers smiling over at Cas, who's head is lifted toward the two still standing in the door way. "Sam, this is Castiel, my youngest brother. Castiel, Sam."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Cas says, plastering on a fake smile. "I'd...get up to shake your hand, but..." His voice trails off awkwardly and Gabe decides to save the day.

"He still doesn't...feel too well," Gabe finishes for him.

"Oh, that's fine. Uh, should I...come b-" Sam starts but Gabriel places his palm over Sam's mouth and shakes his head in fake disapproval.

"Stay. I think Cassie here could use a little talk with the bisexual younger brother of Dean Winchester."

"What...?" Sam trails off, obviously not completely understanding. 

Gabe turns his back to his brother and moves closer to Sam.

"Look, I know you don't know for sure about yourself, but Cas really likes your brother and has this insane delusion about whether Dean will accept, 1, that Cas is gay, and, 2, that Cas has a cute little crush on him," Gabe whispers then reaches a shaky hand up and touches Sam's cheek, gazing up at him pleadingly. "Please, Sam? I just need you to reassure Cas that Dean won't be a total jerk about it."

Sam purses his lips, not in hesitation, it seems, but in an attempt to keep himself from laughing at the spectacularly hilarious idea that Dean would reject someone who's not straight.

Sam nods once and walks toward the bed, and toward Castiel, a placid look on his face. 

Gabe smiles lovingly. 

Yeah, he's definitely falling for that moose of a teen.


	11. Gabe Paints?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe may have a little crush on Sam.
> 
> Just a little one.
> 
> Maybe.
> 
> Kind of.

"Cas, you're definitely overreacting," Sam says, then glances sidelong at Gabe, smirking a little. He adds, mocking Gabe's words from earlier, "I'm not trying to invalidate your emotions."

Cas shakes his head and sniffs again. This is getting frustrating. Sam hasn't dealt with someone this stubborn since he babysat those two damned preschoolers, Alistair and Azazel. Those twins were nothing but absolute trouble; a total headache for Sam AND Dean.

"Look, Cas. I can relate to the feeling of not knowing whether someone is straight or not, that someone mostly being myself. But other people in the past, too..." Sam trails off and looks down, not trying to be dramatic. He clears his throat and continues softly, "I can also relate to feeling like absolute shit because of something someone you thought loved you said. I can relate to feelings of...invalidity and emotional oblivion. But - and I know it's so much easier said than done - you...need...to make yourself go downstairs and say it to his face. Trust me, I was terrified...when I came out to him. But he just smiled and said, quote on quote, 'I wouldn't care if you were a girl trapped in a guy's body or if you were a horse in disguise. You're my brother, and I love you.' And I'll remember that...forever."

Cas tried to speak a few times, his mouth twitching open and closed, but no sound escapes his speechless mouth. Sam smiles lightly; smiles more genuinely than before, because those words weren't just for Cas, they were for himself as well. He feels strange, reassuring himself, but he also feels better now that he realises how alike his own emotions are to someone else's. 

Cas shifts suddenly and hugs Sam tightly enough to choke him.

"Thank you, Sam," Cas breathes. 

"Uh, Cas," Sam doesn't finish, offering a small smile, a grimace, really, knowing Cas can't see it. He tries again, wheezing. "Cas, I can't breathe."

Cas retracts his arms, a sheepish smile on his now beet red face.

"Sorry," Cas mumbles an apology but Sam just laughs.

"It's okay, man," Sam replies, a smile in his voice. He shakes his head lightly and adds, "Now, go talk to him."

Sam watches Cas leave the room, proud of himself for being so conscientious about how his brother works and making Cas aware of that.

Sam turns to Gabriel and smiles in mock snootiness. 

"You know, that went so well, I think you deserve a present," Gabe says, laughing.

Sam furrows his brows but allows his gaze to drift down the back of Gabe's form as he walks toward the closet on the far wall. Sam's eyes pause on Gabe's butt for just a moment, then continue their meander down toward Gabe's feet.

Sam bites his lip lightly and switches his gaze elsewhere. Really, anywhere but Gabe's body. He's so occupied averting his eyes that he doesn't notice Gabe leaving the closet and sneaking up behind him. He only realises Gabe is there when he feels the shift of the bed directly behind him and a pair of hands slides over his eyes. His next breath catches when he feels Gabe's lips right up against his ear and his heated breath as he speaks so quietly, it's nearly unintelligible, even to Sam.

"I think...you'll like this a lot. It's beautiful, if I do say so myself. The person in it, not the painting," Gabe whispers in a husky tone, planting a small kiss behind Sam's ear, then adds with a smile in his voice, "Though, I suppose, since the person is beautiful, the painting is beautiful too."

Sam feels Gabe shift again as he takes one hand off and Sam opens his right eye. 

"No peeking, you cheater," Gabe laughs, taking his other hand off Sam's left eye and wrapping his arms easily around the other boy's shoulders. Sam reaches up and hooks his hands over Gabe's forearms, smiling like a bitch. 

What am I doing, Sam reprimands himself, then reconsiders and thinks, I don't care. Why should I?

He cranes his neck and breathes in the scent of Gabe - strawberry-pomegranate lotion and lake-y smelling laundry detergent. He smiles lightly. 

Kiss him, Sam scolds. You want to kiss him, so fucking do it, you idiot.

Sam turns his head back toward Gabe, but is greeted with a canvas that Gabe holds with one hand in front of his own face. Sam laughs lightly at the way Gabriel looks with a face that isn't his own. 

Then he turns tomato red - he's sure his cheeks are shooting off steam, they're so warm - when he realises who the person in the painting is.

Himself.

Gabe just called him beautiful.


	12. Not a Very Creative Title

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Castiel's mind wanders through a list of reasons why telling Dean how he feels could be dangerous.

Cas sits on his bed and realises he hasn't a clue what to say to Dean. He also hasn't a clue why he's even doing this. 

What the fuck am I thinking, he scolds himself harshly. He's straight.

Of course, Sam assured him that Dean wouldn't care less. 

Suddenly, Cas isn't sure why he's so scared of doing this. Rather, he knows why. But he also knows his reasons are really just excuses - irrational ones, at that.  
And he also doesn't know why he's thinking any of these things. He doesn't know why he's not just walking down there and telling Dean what he feels.

He knows for a fact that he can tell Dean anything. A week. That's how long he's known Dean. But Dean makes him talk. He makes him laugh and cry and yell and smile and...and makes him feel comfortable. Anxious. A good anxious. 

Cas groans and falls back on his pillow. He stares up at the ceiling and searches the bumpy white, rock band poster covered surface for something he knows he won't find. Why is this so difficult. Why can't he just...say things. 

He deliberates giving up for a split second before he sits quickly and rips his fingers frivolously through his hair. He stands and picks his way across the clothing covered floor toward his mirror. He fixes his hair, then practises smiling, stopping after a few seconds because of the feeling of embarrassment that comes with doing something that looks absolutely ridiculous. 

Cas takes a few deep breaths, then opens the door and walks away from the comfort of his messy, lived in room.


	13. As Kissing Ensues

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas admits to liking Dean (finally) and Dean admits that he might be just a teensy bit gay.
> 
> Just for Cas. 
> 
> c:

Cas plops down on the couch and grins broadly at Dean. 

"Alright, buddy, what now," Dean says laughingly.

"I..." Cas trails off and clears his throat almost delicately. "I need to tell you something. Um...again."

He laughs self-deprecatingly and scratches the back of his neck.

"I know I've known you for only a week and a half at most and that what I'm about to admit to is spectacularly ridiculous because you're straight as a stick," Cas starts calmly. He continues with an anxious smile, "and I have absolutely no chance, whatsoever, but I am indissolubly and irrevocably in love with you."

The words seem practised and memorised. As if he's thought them through many times and has gone through every possible scenario and outcome in his head.

"Cas...I...I don't know what to...to say," Dean stumbles over his words because, until now, he didn't realise how much he needed to hear Cas say that.

Cas' lips part slightly and Dean can't help the urge that swells up inside his stomach, the urge kiss those lips.

"'Kay, fuck this. I'm just going come straight out and say this; I had a dream, Cas. About me. And you. And...and me kissing you. And...that..." Dean smiles defensively and shakes his head, letting out a short chuckle before continuing. "That has...never happened before. Cas, I've never...dreamt about you before, never dreamt about kissing you, never even dreamt about kissing another man in general. And it feels...really strange."

"What...I don't..." Castiel fumbles around in his mind for words and finally blurts out, "Dean, you had a dream about kissing me?" He smiles placidly and laughs.

"Shut up," Dean says seriously, then stifles a laugh. The muscles in his face tremble as he attempts to suppress a smile. "Not a word, Cas. To anyone."

Cas bursts out laughing and Dean joins in, holding his stomach. He doesn't even know why they're laughing so hard, and, from the looks of it, neither does Cas. But he laughs, nonetheless. Because he it feels good to laugh this hard.

When the laughing is subdued a bit more, Dean's face becomes serious.

"Cas, I don't...I don't know what...I am, who I am. I didn't even know, up until that...that...dream, that I was...whatever I am," Dean says, shaking his head as he speaks, as if that will reduce the confusion. "I mean...I know my brother couldn't care less...but my dad? He can't know. About the dream, I mean. Because, I mean...it could mean anything, but he'll assume it means that I'm...not straight." 

Dean bites his lower lip and reaches a highly tentative hand out. He lets it hover for a second before he places it gently on Cas' cheek and locks his green eyes on Cas's blue ones.

"But I think I could live with it if I weren't straight," he adds softly.

Dean notices how Cas' breathing becomes more sporadic and how his eyes widen as he gazes at Dean. He also noticed how Cas' aquamarine eyes twitch quickly down to Dean's lips then back up again, and Dean smiles.

"Hey Cas?" Dean asks quietly, dropping his hand. He feels guilty, though, when he sees the defeated look on Cas' face after his hand falls, so Dean grasps the other boy's hand in his own. "Cas, why...why didn't your brothers ever introduce us to you?"

"They thought I couldn't handle meeting new people but it's actually hilarious how wrong they were. You and Sam are the two most amazingly relatable people I've met in my entire life, not including Gabe," Cas says, then pauses before adding a little reluctantly, "You especially. You made me laugh, Dean." Cas slides his hand over Dean's cheek and continues. "I haven't done that in months."

Dean offers a small and sad smile. It fades almost immediately, though, and he asks, "Were you...in the hospital?"

Cas nods solemnly and looks down, slightly embarrassed.

Dean hooks his finger under the boy's chin and presses up so Cas will meet his gaze.

"Why?" Deans asks simply.

"I, uh...my dad...found out I'm gay and...he..." Cas trails off and looks away. That's when Dean notices the blueish-purple bruise blossoming from the back of Cas' shoulder.

His mouth hangs open and his eyes widen. He feels a sudden urge to cry. 

He also feels a sudden corybantic infuriation toward Cas' father.

Why the fuck would someone ever think it's even remotely acceptable to attack their own child like this.

"Cas?" Dean says, on the verge of tears. Cas looks back over at him, obviously completely unaware of what Dean just encountered. "Did he...did he beat you?"

Cas just stares, seemingly emotionless, for what seems like hours, then his features twist and a sob rips from his throat as he gives a trembling nod.

"Oh my god..." Dean says quietly, then louder: "Oh my god, Cas. I'll kill him. I'm gonna kill that fucker!" 

Dean looks down at Cas and his hand doesn't hover this time as he reaches out and wipes a tear away gently.

"Cas, he's not gonna get away with this. I can promise you that." He shakes his head, pursing his lips as a tear slips from his own eye. "I'm not gonna let him hurt you anymore, Cas. I'm not..." His voice breaks so he stops talking.

He pulls Cas into a tight hug and screws his eyes shut, running all the ways he could murder this son-of-a-bitch through his mind.

Dean is careful not to even slide a finger over the giant bruise on Cas' back as he squeezes the young man. 

Castiel's sobs wrack both of their bodies and rip through the silent house and the otherwise still air like a jet plane taking off. Dean just holds him, whispering absolute nonsense against Cas's ear. 

After at least ten minutes, Cas' sobbing settles down and he's just a limp mass slung across Dean's chest. His breaths become so even that Dean pulls away to check that Cas isn't asleep. 

But Cas' weary gaze meets Dean's and he just looks almost dead, like he doesn't even have the energy to be moving his eyes.

"Will ya tell me about it," Dean asks placidly and tilts his down in an attempt to make Cas look at him again.

Cas purses his lips, seeming like he won't say anything, then take a deep breath and does exactly what Dean didn't expect.

"Dad was...sitting here on the couch, watching tv with a bottle of...whatever...in his hand and earlier I'd decided - stupidly, I might add - to come out to him. No convincing from anyone," he pauses, narrowing his eyes, trying to recall. "Actually, there was convincing, but the convincing was all three of my brothers trying to get me not to say anything... Because of what happened when Gabe hinted at being bi."

Dean furrows his brows but doesn't say anything, just gives Cas a silent hint to clarify.

"When Gabe hinted at being bi, dad lashed out and grabbed Gabriel's arm. Pressed the burning end of a cigar to his wrist. There's a circular scar there, as you could probably guess. And that was without alcohol involved. But, of course, being my spectacularly stubborn self, I told him," Cas stops talking again, taking a shaking breath in. He continues, looking Dean straight in the eyes, his brows pulled in. "It started with yelling. He swore at me multiple times, which obviously didn't reciprocate with me much. But then he leaped at me...gripped my shoulders too tightly. He got right up in my face and said..." He trails off again staring off into the distance now.

A tear slips over the edge of Cas's lower eyelid and Dean finds himself progressively wanting more and more to stick a silver knife directly through that sorry-excuse-for-a-human-being's heart and watch the life leave his eyes. He hasn't even met Cas' father, and already he wants to murder the asshat.

Cas laughs suddenly. A short, strangled laugh that breaks Dean's heart.

Cas continues with a new resolve in his voice. 

"He said to me, 'Castiel, you son-of-a-whore! You pathetic, worthless piece of shit. You mean nothing to me! You mean nothing to anyone! You're a sorry excuse for a waste of space! You're a waste of oxygen, you faggot! And you're a waste of my energy! You're nothing to me, you little fuck!' And then he..." Castiel's voice starts to waver, then breaks completely as he continues with his face twisted menacingly into a look of fervent disgust. "He hit me. He punched my shoulder; hit me so hard I fell to my knees in pain. He kneed my stomach, then. That's when I started crying. That only made him hit me harder..." His voice had started out as fiercely robust, but softened as he went. 

Dean suddenly doesn't give a fuck that there are tears streaming down his cheeks. He wants to hold Castiel. Comfort him. Make him feel safe forever. He never wants to let go. He wants to be brave, to show Cas that he's brave and thag Cas needs to be brave, too.

"I...basically stumbled...back upstairs, to my room. I didn't even bother going to one of my brothers. They would worry too much and I...I felt like a burden. I still do," Cas' voice just cracks every few words at first, then completely crumbles on the last one along with his resolve to remain intrepid. His features contort and tears start falling from his eyes again as he continues between gasping cries. "I...I went into the bathroom in my room and I...I took my razor. I popped the head off and took out the blades and-" he doesn't finish - can't finish, really - as a sob rips through him. 

Dean is full on crying at this point. He rubs the heels of his hands across his cheeks so roughly, they leave behind a burning sensation in his already steaming red face.

Dean gathers Cas into a tight hug and they cry into eachother's shirts. Dean understands that no amount of hugging or soothing words or therapy or even medicine could get rid of the pain Castiel feels, both physically and emotionally. But Dean wants to at least subdue it, even if only for a few minutes.

Castiel cries for a lot longer this time, but still doesn't fall asleep, as Dean was expecting. They lay silently on the couch together, Cas' head tucked under Dean's chin and Dean's arm wound tightly around Cas' waist.

Dean cranes his neck to gaze down at the other man and smiles sadly at the exhausted look on Cas's face. 

Dean breathes in deeply, soaking in the presence of Cas draped against his chest. He sits for a few more moments, stroking his thumb across the bend in Cas' waist then moves to prop himself up on his arm.

He notices how Cas' next breath hitches visibly in his throat and his eyes freeze on Dean's hand when Dean lifts Cas' left arm and slowly, tenderly rolls up his sleeve.

Cas catches Dean's hand with his own and looks up at him pleadingly. 

"Please?" Dean asks softly, a weary look in his concerned eyes. 

Cas lets his hand drop defeatedly and Dean rolls his sleeve the rest of the way up. He gazes down at what must be at least a hundred stitches and feels like crying all over again. Instead, he leans down and places a gentle kiss against each wound. 

Dean is suddenly aware of Cas watching him do this and he looks up. 

Do not take advantage, do not take advantage, do not take advantage, Dean scolds himself but then realises something. It's not taking advantage if I've wanted to kiss him all along. Just bad timing.

He doesn't care what kind of timing it is, though. He leans forward and places a quick kiss on Cas' tear-streaked cheek. He stares Castiel in the eyes and his breaths waver. He shakes his head slowly and makes the split second decision to just fucking go for it. 

He leans forward again, and, this time, places a gentle kiss on Cas' lips. When he pulls back, however, he doesn't pull back very far, his face maybe just centimetres from Cas's. He subconsciously reaches up and caresses the other boy's cheek in his hand, tilting Cas' facing slightly before closing the gap again.

This time, they lock lips in a slow and sad kiss, Dean holding tight to Castiel's waist, Cas shivering giddily under Dean's solid but gentle touch. 

When Dean pulls away, he smiles lazily and runs his fingers through Castiel's rug of hair. 

He almost hates to admit it, but that was probably the best kiss he's ever had.


	14. Where Has My Life Gone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens when near sexual encounters attack? This chapter.
> 
> That's what, you asshat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, they will eventually actually have sex. I'm just cynical in that I enjoy watching people writhe in impatience.

"Their dad? This drunk named Crowley. I was, like...mmm, five? The last time I saw him without a drink in his hand and a scowl on his face," Gabe recalls, smiling softly. "Their mother, Abaddon? Went MIA when the twins were only...six, maybe? I just wonder if their mum's absence and their dad's alcoholism is the real reason they're such bitches."

Sam laughs, gazing over at Gabe lovingly.

Earlier that day, they'd flopped down on Gabe's bed. They've been laying together for at least five hours, just talking.

This, Gabe realises, is why Gabe has fallen for Sam. They can cuddle up on a bed and simply talk for hours on end. And Sam can talk about anything. To Gabe, Sam could make cableknit hats or the way worms reproduce seem interesting.

The Winchesters have been living at the Shurleys' house for three weeks. Cas and Dean are obviously trying - and failing - to hide that something is going on between them while Gabe and Sam have gotten closer and closer. 

Gabe is slightly disappointed - Sam hasn't kissed him yet. Though, Gabe is completely sure he's tried. 

Gabe is just fine, nevertheless, simply being cuddle up under Sam's chin, clutching his shirt and talking, for whatever reason, about Meg and Ruby. He's actually completely sure this entire conversation started with them talking about Gabe's favourite kinds of movies (Disney). He's just not completely sure how joking about writing a Snow White and Tinkerbell fanfiction where Snow White accidentally eats the poisoned apple and, while in a coma, finds Neverland in her dreams and falls in inexplicable love with the tiny fairy lead to explaining the lives of the two cockiest twins in the universe.

He doesn't mind though, so long as he's talking to the most gorgeous man he's ever met.

As he listens to Sam's beautiful voice, Gabe lets his mind drift back to when he presented Sam with a painting of the boy and Sam insisted on hanging it just above the head of the bed. He smiles at the boy's mock pretentiousness.

Sam's soft voice pierces Gabriel's thoughts and tears him out of his trance.

"Where are you, Gabe?" Sam mumbles, not even glancing down.

"I'm thinking about your hilariously false sass," Gabe says sarcastically at first, but then his smile falls and he adds quietly, "I'm actually thinking about how...irresistibly beautiful you are, both inside and out, and how...I think I'm in love with you."

Sam doesn't know how to answer. It's not exactly a shock, but he's scared he might say the wrong thing. Because, when he thinks about it, he has to admit, he's thinking the same thing about Gabe.

So instead of replying, he cranes his neck and plants a gentle kiss on the top of Gabriel's head. 

Gabe looks up, not in surprise so much as in amiable complacency. He reciprocates and places a light peck on Sam's jaw.

Sam shifts suddenly and grabs Gabe by the waist. He pulls the shorter boy up and levels Gabe's face with his own, smirking when Gabe's eyes widen at the close proximity of their lips. 

Gabe bites down on his lower lip and gazes into those hazel green eyes.

Gabe tilts his head up, kisses his finger tips, and presses his hand to the lips of the Sam in the painting that resides on his wall. He peeks back down at Sam and smiles suggestively, bouncing his brows, watching Sam blink slowly then smirk at the cheesy proposal.

Then Sam does something that only slightly surprises Gabe.

Sam leans down and plants a slow and gentle kiss on Gabe's lips. 

When Sam pulls away, though, there seems to be a new resolution in his eyes. He furrows his brows leans back down, quickly closing the gap between them. 

Gabe fits his lips perfectly between Sam's. 

Gabe also takes the liberty of deepening the kiss by running his tongue over Sam's lips until the moose admits Gabe's tongue to lick into his mouth. They breathe into each other; breathe heavily, their chests heaving quickly against the other's. Their tongues wrestle for dominance and their hands dig fiercely into eachother's shirts.

Gabe grasps at Sam's waist and moves to lay on top of the taller boy, a leg on either side of Sam's hips. 

Gabe rolls his hips to show off his already obvious erection and smiles into the kiss when he finds he's not the only one who has one. 

Gabe's hands roam over Sam's torso, then somehow find their way underneath the tall man's shirt. Gabe takes his time, though, to wander over every hill and valley and rise and dip of Sam's surprisingly muscled chest. 

Gabriel slides Sam's shirt up and over Sam's chest and tugs lightly before Sam complies and lifts his arms so Gabe can pull it completely off.

Gabe trails kisses over Sam's jaw, then down his neck and across his collarbone, pausing and stopping just above Sam's pectorals.

He bites his lip and averts his eyes for a second, then looks back up at Sam, who's eyes are closed tightly.

Sam opens them when he seems to realise that Gabe has stopped.

"I'm sorry," Gabe whispers, genuinely apologetic.

"About," Sam laughs lightly.

"Doing...that."

Sam bends his arm at the elbow and sets his hand firmly on Gabe's cheek as he gazes down at the shorter man's absolutely gorgeous molten honey eyes.

"Don't be sorry, Gabe..." Sam smiles deviously and adds in a mocking tone, "Do whatever the hell you want to do in this shitty life and just thank whatever you believe in that it's a short one."

Gabe tries and fails to suppress a smile and ends up even laughing softly.

"That's my line," Gabe whispers. 

They just grin like idiots for a moment before Gabe yawns passively and leans his head down against Sam's bare chest.

He drifts off to sleep, comforted by the combination of the warmth radiating off Sam's soft skin, Sam's even heartbeat, and the knowledge of whom he's sleeping on top of.


	15. I Am a Madwoman with a Dream to Make You Suffer Immensely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, enjoy some more almost-sex and allow me to watch you rip your hair out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just imagine my maniacally sadistic laughter emanating from your closet and quiver in fear at my attempt to expedite your inevitable psychological constipation.

Sam waits patiently for Gabe's breathing to even out, staring at the ceiling with a satisfied grin on his face, then shifts and slowly, carefully moves Gabriel from his chest to the spot beside him.

He stands quietly and pads over to the closet, still bare-chested, not completely sure what he's expecting to find.

He opens the door and sees an explosion of colours.

Canvases - both blank and painted - paint brushes, paints, palettes, loose papers, sketchbooks, charcoal and graphite pencils, coloured pencils, and every other art necessity anyone could possibly dream of scatters the floor and several shelves. 

Sam was certainly not expecting a walk-in closet, much less one filled to the brim with paintings and paint supplies.

He was absolutely stunned when he saw how elegantly done the painting of himself was but he had no idea Gabe was this into it. Gabe had never even mentioned art in any way, now that he thinks about it. Though, Sam thinks that he should have known that Gabe paints as (maybe even more than) a hobby after seeing how intricate the features and details were in the painting he'd presented Sam with.

Sam smiles, tiptoeing into the closet. He picks up several different paintings and sketches that catch his eye as he walks farther into the closet. Actually, it's really more like a hallway, he notices.

He plasters a shit-eating grin on his face when he glances only sidelong to his left and catches a glimpse of a stack of sketches. He looks through them to find that not only is the sketch on the top of the stack of him, the rest of the papers exhibit Sam with several different expressions on his face; a bored-eyed Sam, gazing down at his school desk, his chin in his hand and his back slumped; a squinty-eyed, ecstaticly grinning Sam, his teeth straight and his hair a little mussed up; an arrogantly smirking Sam with a lump in his right cheek and an apple in his hand, a single bite taken from it; a relaxed Sam with an easy, light-hearted grin on his soft face, his hands crossed behind is head and his legs stretched out, feet resting on a table; a frustrated looking Sam, his eyes glancing at something to his right, a small but not-so-serious frown on his face. But one specifically catches his eye. He furrows his brows and looks at the next picture.

As he shuffles through them, he finds that several of them are of Sam crying, more than one showing his mouth twisted into a pained, heart-wrenching frown, teeth gritted and eyes squinting with tears. His stomach drops.

Is this really how Gabe sees me? His mind wanders to the single time when he cried in front of Gabe. The second day the Winchesters were here. He'd been sitting with Gabe on the bed and talking about...something...when they somehow came upon the reason Sam had called and asked to stay with them. He recalls how he'd so easily spilled, not necessarily his life story, but just his story, in general, to Gabe. He remembers how Gabe didn't blink an eye at the chaos that had happened in the Winchester house two nights before (and that had happened more than once before that) and how Gabe didn't ask questions or give Sam the whole 'kicked puppy' look when Sam explained why they had left the house this time of all times. 

As soon as he's done pondering these things, though, he flips one last drawing of himself crying and sees something that makes his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline and his lips part. His breath hitches as he reads through it and he nearly cries, smiling like a bitch now.

'This is Sam, the most beautiful person in the world. Sam makes me feel things that no one else has ever been able to, and he's completely oblivious to this fact. His smile could light up the darkest depths of the universe; his laugh could pull someone back to life from even the clutches of death; his gentle gaze could lift the spirits of the grouchiest, least loved person in the world; his voice could pull someone out of a full blown coma; his touch could make anyone feel like they were flying through the highest clouds in the atmosphere and out to Mars and back; and, though crying is viewed so often as weak, his tears make me feel an entirely new sense of presence in the world - make me feel careful, and loving, and wise, and, hell, even make me feel like I'm able to comfort and protect anyone. He's the glint of light in my eyes that you see when I smile, because he's the reason I smile. And so this paper is a Declaration of Love. Cheesy as it may be, I'm completely and utterly in love with even the darkest, most hidden depths of Sam's mind. Even his most bitter tears couldn't compare with his smile.'

Sam realises a tear has made it's way down his cheek when he feels it land on his thumb. 

"I wrote that about two days ago," Gabe's voice comes softly from behind Sam and he whips his head to the right to look at the shorter man.

"I...I'm sorry I didn't mean to-" Sam starts but Gabe presses a finger gently to the taller boy's lips.

"Don't be sorry," Gabe smiles and opens his mouth to add the rest of the motto but Sam interupts him.

"If you say that again, so help me, I'll..." Sam trails off, staring into Gabe's eyes. 

"You'll... what, Sammitch?" Gabe asks mockingly and stifles a smile.

"Do this," Sam says quietly before wrapping his hands around Gabe's waist, turning so Sam's back faces the entrance to the closet, and pushing the shorter man backward until his back hits the wall. 

Sam pins him down and locks his lips roughly with Gabe's, smiling when Gabe gasps as Sam trails kisses gently down Gabe's neck.

Sam lets his hands drift downward and shoves his hands in Gabe's back pockets to hold the shorter boy against himself. 

He laughs a little when he realises how absolutely ridiculous their height difference is. Sam has to bend down at least half a foot to lock his lips with Gabe's. So instead of doing that anymore, he lifts Gabe by the waist and smiles into the kiss when Gabe wraps his legs compliantly - and, it seems, excitedly - around Sam's hips. 

Sam holds Gabe in place and slides his hand easily over Gabe's cheek, pushing the man's blonde hair behind his ear as he kisses him.

"Sam," Gabe says quickly and quietly. 

"Yeah?" Sam replies, his breath heavy.

"Wouldn't this be more comfortable on the bed?" Gabriel inquires seriously of the taller boy.

Sam smiles lightly and says, "I didn't plan on going that far yet, Gabe." Sam brushes his fingers through Gabe's hair and watches the shorter boy's eyes, noticing, just now, the reason they're so gorgeous. People with those coloured eyes don't usually have a Limbal ring, much less such a dark one.

Gabe smiles broadly and says, "You really like to play hard to get. I like that, Sammy." He adds in a mockingly snotty british tone, "Moving too quickly can result in shorter relationships."

Sam laughs lightly and plants a kiss on Gabriel's forehead.

"I'm in deep shit, Gabe, I gotta say," Sam says, suppressing a laugh.

Gabe looks down at the taller boy from his spot against the wall and furrows his brows, suddenly worried.

Sam smiles broadly and adds. "I think I might like you." 

He nuzzles his nose softly into the dip at the base of Gabe's neck and mumbles contently, "Just a little."


	16. Cassie's Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Refer to my profile picture, in which Castiel is clearly drunk off his shit and walking into Dean's motel room.
> 
> "I found a liquor store and drank it."

Cas reaches down to his beige-ish brown, grungy looking messenger bag and pulls out his gold flask with vigorously shaking hands, leaning back - hiding, really - against the back wall of the school and taking a long pull.

It's his first day back to school and it's already not going well at all. 

He'd been sitting in class when the feeling of a hand with sharp nails clutching at his stomach and the feeling of not being able to breathe properly turned into a full blown anxiety attack and he'd had to leave the classroom. He'd told the teacher he was just going to go to the bathroom, but he'd run out the back door and sat down next to a giant blue dumpster. The smell of it isn't his biggest problem right now, though. He just needs a drink and a few minutes to calm down.

The red doors to his right burst open and he only glances over calmly, half expecting it to be a teacher or cop and half expecting it to be Gabriel, whom he'd texted a few minutes earlier as he'd stumbled out through the door of the classroom.

"Cas?" Gabe says quickly, a short, clipped sound that escapes his mouth, searching first for his younger brother to his right, and then letting a sharp breath out when he spots him to the left of the door.

Gabe runs full speed toward his brother and basically skids to a stop in front of him. He leans over Cas and takes the younger boy's face in both his hands, searching for...something; Cas can't tell what.

"You okay, Cas?" Gabriel asks quietly, either trying to stay calm for Cas or trying not to be heard by passerby.

"Yeah," Cas pauses to take another sip of the cheap liquor in his now half-empty flask. "Yeah, I'm just fuckin' peachy, Gabe."

"Oh, God, Cas," Gabe says, not daring to snatch the boy's alcohol from him. Gabe knows damn well that Cas needs it more than he needs to be sober for his first day back to this shitty school. Gabe takes a deep breath in, locking his eyes on Castiel's, though the younger boy's blue gaze is averted downward, and slides his hand over the side of Cas's cheek.

"Gabe? I can't..." Cas trails off, his voice wavering only enough for Gabe to ever notice, then continues. "I can't...be here...right now," he says, making it sound much more like a question than a heralded statement as to what he does next.

Cas leans to his left and nearly sobs at the burning sensation of the alcohol and whatever else went down his throat that day coming back up and falling out through his mouth onto the pavement.

He just stares down at the disgusting mess and raises an eyebrow. He doesn't know why it's funny, or even if he's laughing at what just happened, but he chuckles, nonetheless, and says simply, still laughing, "Well, shit."

Gabe, whom Cas has all but forgotten about in his apparently hilarious encounter with a pool of vomit, takes another sharp breath in and shakes his head. He wraps an arm around Cas' shoulders, careful not to press down too hard on the now receding bruise on Cas's right shoulder blade, and helps the poor boy to stand.

Cas laughs lightly and hangs his head against Gabe's shoulder.

Maybe taking a short nap in his own bed, instead of on the pavement out behind the school as he'd planned, isn't such a terrible idea after all.


	17. Cas Is Still Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is basically just a giant sigh from Gabe.

"Alright, Cas. Okay, we'll get you outta here," Gabe says, breathing heavily as he basically carries his brother to Michael's jeep, which Mike had loaned to the younger man with a not-so-ardent flap of his hand. Gabe had thought it slightly incriminating at first that Mike had been so off-key and hesitant about allowing the boy to drive the jeep even though Michael knows damn well that Gabe is a safe enough driver...with other people in the car. But when he hadn't found anything dubious - at least for a 23-year-old man - he'd written it off as Mike not trusting him with such an expensive car...okay, expensive for other people. 

With their mother having been a doctor within a family of other doctors, and their dad a bookwrite, they had more than enough money to spare for a new car. Hell, they could get three new houses and still have money to put twenty people through four years of college. Each. 

But now their father is a drunk and technically missing, so, though they have more than enough, they have to spare whatever money they have, and that means Gabe not buying his own car. For now. 

Gabe starts the jeep up and skids out of the parking lot, grabbing Cas' shoulder when he leans too far left in the passenger seat and bumps his head on the window.

"Shit, Cas, sorry. I di-" Gabe cuts off the rest of his sentence as he swerves suddenly around a pothole, swearing at whatever greater power may be watching down on him (probably laughing), then tries again. "I didn't mean to do that. I'm just...worried about you; desperate to get you home."

Gabe glances over at Cas when the younger boy doesn't answer. Cas hiccups and laughs easily. Gabe rolls his eyes and swings the car around a right turn.

"You are our father's son," he mutters to himself. Unfortunately, he didn't mutter quietly enough and Cas starts singing, too loudly, laughing when he hits a wrong note.

"CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SOOOOON! THERE'LL BE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DOOONE! LAY YOUR WEA-" Cas' head lolls to the right lazily and his eyes lock on Gabe's, mock annoyance in his face, when Gabe hits a speed bump and Cas' voice wavers. "Don't zoo thad, Gaeb! You're mess up tha song."

"Well, Jesus Christ, Cas, what else am I supposed to do? Magickally snap away the speed bump? I'm tryin' to get you home before you barf in the jeep!"

"Well I'm tryna sing!"

Gabe sighs heavily at this and shakes his head. Cas laughs loudly and slams his hand against the window. 

"How du yoo opin thes thang," Cas slurs indignantly.

"Hey, Cas?" Gabe waits for Cas to look back over at him to finish his request. "Shut up," he finishes, annoyed by his brother's ridiculous attitude. He's never seen his brother this drunk. Cas must be a lightweight if only a 230 gram flask of cheap booze can make him this abhorrently flaccid.

Gabe pulls into the drive way and jumps out of the car. He runs quickly around the front of the jeep to the passenger door on the left side and peels Cas out of his seat and through the door. 

As Gabe throws Cas' left arm across his shoulders and helps the boy limp up to the front door, he remembers back to how Castiel barfed out back beside the school and aims the younger boy's head away from him. 

Gabe knows the puking was about seventy-five percent due to the anxiety but he doesn't want to take his chances. He's wearing his favourite shirt!

Gabe walks through the front door, struggling to keep Cas from tripping over his own feet and sees the bathroom light on. His stomach drops as he becomes increasingly worried that someone may have broken into the house.

Only slightly glancing down at his brother, Gabe drops Cas on the couch, knowing it probably hurt his shoulder, but not exactly caring at the moment because having a sore shoulder when Cas regains conciousness is better than him not regaining conciousness at all because some crazy psycho serial murderer killed him.

He pads quietly across the den to the bathroom in the hallway that leads to the stairs that go up a level. He pauses before peeking his head around the door frame but sighs in relief when he sees Michael. The older man sits in front of the mirror, peeling off a pair of fake lashes with a disgusted look on his face. He glances sidelong without reservation or much affliction at all at Gabe and twists his mouth in mock annoyance.

Gabe bites down on his lower lip to stifle a grin and what Gabe thinks is a completely warranted laugh, and asks mockingly, "Hey, there, Mike. Show choir practice go shorter than expected?"

Michael chucks a roll of toilet paper at Gabe's face and it hits Gabe dead-on in the nose. 

He rubs it in mock pain and says, "Ow, Mike. Ow." 

Mike narrows his eyes at the younger boy.

"Gabe? You better shut your mouth before I throw something harder at you." He looks back down and picks up a makeup remover wipe, muttering the rest of his sentence. "It's play rehearsal, and, yes, it went much shorter than expected because a stage light nearly fell on the director! Now, wipe that ridiculously unnecessary smirk off your face and cease the vexatious immaturity. I am not in the mood to deal with you and your unbelievably cocky attitude."

Gabe puts his hands up in false defense and laughs lightly, shaking as head as he walks back to the den. Making fun of Mike is definitely a way to get rid of sinking feeling in his stomach and he's just grateful that Michael is here at all.

"Ah! Gabriel!" Michael's warning tone draws Gabe back toward the bathroom. When he stops and leans against the door frame, Gabe raises an eyebrow in silent question.

"Why are you home this early?" 

"Cas is drunk," Gabe smiles and attempts to leave but Mike yells at him again.

"Drunk, Gabriel?! Why?"

"Look, Mike," Gabe peeks back out to the living room, though Cas must be asleep by now, and lowers his voice, as if someone might hear him. "Cas had an anxiety attack in the middle of class. It was so bad that he had to go out behind the school just feel safe - hid behind a dumpster, Michael. So, yeah, he's fuckin' drunk. I wasn't about to take away the only thing keeping him from murdering everyone and then killing himself with a pogo stick, or whatever the hell that kid does."

Michael squints at him for a long moment, then nods curtly and shoos Gabe away.

Gabe waltzes back into the den and grabs the remote to turn the tv on.

Maybe Cas would be better off in his bed, instead of on the couch. But when Gabe sees Cas slumped heavily against the arm of the couch, he decides visibly against it, his eyes widening. 

Gabe settles in beside his brother, his arm thrown over the back of the couch, and turns on the tv. He peeks dismissively down at at his brother and breathes in, nodding his head imperceptibly. 

"Wow, Cas. You've gotten in real deep this time, haven't ya," he whispers to himself, patting Cas' limp arm which hangs completely without hindrance across the armrest and over his head.

Cas snores lightly as the tv flickers against Gabe's eyes. Gabe doesn't pay attention to the voices or images on the screen, though, as his mind wonders anxiously about what Cas' future has in store.

Gabe isn't exactly thrilled by what comes to mind.


	18. Cas Must Get Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean and Gabe make a pact to force Cas to want to get better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only reason I did this chapter like this is because I feel like I don't make Dean and Gabe interact much, even though they really have some chemistry.

Dean watches Cas sleep, frowning fitfully at the disconcerted look on the younger man's face.

"Will he be okay to go back to school at all?" Dean asks turning his head toward Gabe, who's decided it's too hard to tell which one of them Cas would feel better waking up to, and who - literally - dragged Dean out of the school and back to the house.

Gabe sighs, obviously just as unsure as Dean, and scratches at the back of his neck.

"Ya know, Deano, I'm really just...I want to take it a day at a time with him. He's too unpredictable at this point. I mean..." He trails off, looking up at Dean for a moment then staring tentatively back down at his brother. "I gotta say, the anxiety attacks? The way...none of us can leave him alone in a room with anything sharp when he's not sleeping? The way he tries to make his self-loathe completely nonchalant? It's terrible! Completely atrocious and none of us know how to handle this kind of thing!" He stops again and shakes his head. "Our dad may be an inexcusably abhorrent drunk, but he never had depression like this."

"I wish I knew how to help. I mean, we're the only two who can make him talk. We, of all people, should be able to configure some kind of plan to make him better," Dean replies, brushing his fingers through Cas's mussed up brown hair that now hangs carelessly over his eyes and sticks out in places where his head laid flat for too long.

"I think we need to subtly invalidate his...actually kind of ridiculous...delusion that dad's gonna show up again."

"Gabe, I'm not gonna make him feel like he's going crazy."

"Well he kinda is, Deano!"

Dean doesn't say anything for a while. He remembers the first time he and Cas talked about their dads and how unbelievably similar they are. Dean recalls how choleric he'd gotten as he told Cas about the way Dean's father treated Sam; how guilty he'd felt about not telling Sam the moment Dean had dreamt about kissing Cas. Dean knows he should've taken more than one of those verbal beatings from their father. He should have. But every time he tells Sam how guilty he feels about it, Sam just throws something a little too solid at Dean and tells him to shut his mouth or he'll start throwing punches instead of objects.

Dean doesn't want to start feeling guilty about yet another thing in his life. But he also doesn't want Cas to feel so alone on this planet; to feel completely, inexorably evicted from the waking workd. 

What he does want is for Cas to wake the fuck up; stop getting drunk, running away from the situation; to start getting angry. 

To stop using alcohol as an excuse - an excuse to leave his mind for hours in a row, an excuse to feel false hope, an excuse to exonerate his father from the vicious beatings the man seems to spew from his body.

Dean swallows hard and nods dismissively, knowing Gabe wants an absolute answer, but not wanting to give him one right now.

If Dean says no to this, he knows he'll feel even worse about Cas' state of mind and as if it's his own fault that Cas will continue to be emotionally asphyxiated, always feeling ever-guiltier for never even trying to fix Cas, knowing this was the only way he could fix him.

But if he says yes, he could save Cas' life at the expense of his own nearly interminable conscience; at the expense of his own guilt.

He rolls the consequences of this decision around in his mind before deciding, quickly and without another thought, really, that saving Cas from going completely crazy, and making himself feel guilty in the short term for invalidating Cas' emotions, is a hell of a lot better than allowing Cas to remain emotionally, and, by default, physically, exhausted just because of some asinine veneration that his father will randomly show up on his doorstep after what Lucifer said to him. 

"Dean. Therapy isn't working. Meds aren't working. Hell, us talking to him; you taking him outside to do things; me not yelling at him for smoking and drinking; none of it. Nothing is working. We need to..." Gabe's eyes meet Dean's pleadingly as he trails off. "Dean, we gotta make it go away for him. It's not healthy."

Dean screws his eyes shut, still intent on not answering completely. But the persistent pang of guilt and the anxiety that comes with not being his usually rational self makes him open his eyes and stare down at Cas with a new resolve.

"Let's end this," Dean says quietly, furiously, nodding his head. 

Dean is gonna make Cas feel better, or die trying.


	19. Gabe Can Be Gentle...And Bottom.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HERE IS YOUR SABRIEL SMUT
> 
> YOU'RE WELCOME

Gabriel enters his room to find Sam slumped over himself on the bed. He furrows his brows and turns his head a little, making sure with his peripheral vision that no one is in the hallway and closing the door, nevertheless, taking a sidelong glance at Sam. He contemplates what might be going on for a moment, but rushes tenaciously to Sam's side when he catches a glimpse of a tear falling from Sam's cheek.

"Sam?" He inquires softly and peels the younger boy's hands from his face to find his cheeks pink with what must be fury and streaked with what must be hours of tears. "Oh my god, Sam, what's wrong?"

God, am I gonna have to play mommy for everyone today? Gabe thinks to himself, then flushes visibly at the guilty feeling in his gut and takes that back. Shut up, you ass. Be careful for once in your damn life.

Sam doesn't answer right away, and Gabe never expected him to. So Gabriel just crouches next to him, trying to get Sam to look him in the eye.

"Sam, baby. What's wrong? What's happening?" Gabe's heart breaks the longer he stares at Sam's pouting lip and his squinted eyes. He doesn't want this to about him. He looks back on the past month and tries to recall anything he may have said or done but can't bring anything to mind.

"My...dad..." Sam starts hesitantly. Gabe persists subtly by wiping his thumb across Sam's unbelievably warm cheek to erase the tears left behind. 

Why hadn't he been here? Why hadn't he noticed Sam's absence around the house for the past two hours? He nearly slams his head against the wall. How could he be so imprudent and arrogant toward the fact that Sam hadn't been around for a while. 

"What, Sam? Tell me," Gabe's voice is insistent, he realises, which he knows won't get him nearly as far as just sitting and listening. So he tried agains, more softly this time: "You can tell me, Sammy."

Sam blinks slowly, like he's completely exhausted. Gabe wouldn't be surprised. 

"My dad called my cell. I don't...I don't know how...he got my number..." Sam trails off, reaching a trembling hand up to his own face and running a finger absent-mindedly over his eyebrow. "I don't...understand where he got it, who...gave it to him. He...he, uh...he called me. Apologised for what he did and said to me and Dean."

Gabe furrows his brows. He's beginning to think Sam has completely misplaced his brain, because this conversation is not going as planned.

"And...this is a problem...why?" Gabe asks, prolonging the m in 'problem' to exaggerate his absolute bewilderment. 

"Because he thinks apologising for what he said to us and what he did to Dean just excuses him from everything!" Sam yells maliciously. Gabe knows Sam isn't angry at him in particular, but he flinched anyway. Sam's eyes noticeably soften when he sees Gabe's visible grimace.

Gabe looks down shamefully, knowing he probably just made same feel horrible for explaining himself at all, but perks up when he feels the now familiar tingling sensation that comes with Sam's hand cupping his cheek.

"I'm sorry, Gabe. I'm just...I can't possibly begin to understand why he would ever think a simple apology could condone his malevolence," Sam explains, planting a peck of a kiss on Gabe's forehead. Gabe watches the other man with gleaming eyes for just a second, then stands abruptly, holding Sam's face. 

He leans in so close that only Sam could possibly hear his next words.

"I don't think anyone could disagree with your logic. Do not..." Gabe kisses Sam's nose lightly, almost possessively. "Ever. Invalidate your feelings just because of some asshole of a father who wants to invalidate them for you." 

Gabriel closes the small gap between their lips and kisses Sam ferociously. He pushes lightly against Sam's shoulders until Sam obliges and lays back on the bed.

Gabe crawls up to straddle Sam's hips.

"Sam?" Gabe's quiet voice emanates in Sam's skull before he realises Gabe actually said it.

"Yeah, Gabe?" Sam replies softly, trailing his fingers absently over Gabe's frustratingly denim covered leg.

"You're just...so beautiful," Gabe says, his voice almost cracking.

Sam's eyes take a moment to stare at the middle of Gabe's chest - probably staring straight through his many layers of shirt, skin, and muscle and right into his soul - before the sharp hazel orbs twitch up to look at Gabe's honey-green-red gaze. 

Sam lets out a silent breath that Gabe is sure even the taller boy didn't know he was holding in.

"Gabe..." Sam tries to say something but his voices falls away and he ends up cupping his hand around the back of Gabe's neck and pulling him down.

Sam kisses him eagerly, and Gabe allows Sam's tongue to slide over his own, not wanting to ever leave this moment.

When Gabe pulls away for even a second, just to pull off his shirt, Sam's eyes lock on his and the wide, watery, pleading gaze that could make the toughest man on earth crack, makes Gabe crumble, and he groans, leaning back down. Sam tugs Gabe's shirt off himself and trails his fingers lightly down Gabe's back.

Gabriel shivers under Sam's touch and smirks as he pulls Sam's Goddamn flannel shirt off along with the black t-shirt he's wearing under it. Gabe takes a long moment to pause and gaze down at Sam's sculpted torso, running his sweaty palms over the rises and dips in Sam's abs. 

Sweet motheroffuckingjesus. Gabe wants to move more quickly; wants to tear Sam's jeans right off and fit, from what he can feel right now, what must be Sam's huge cock into his mouth; he wants to swallow Sam whole, take all of him in. Be greedy, just this once.

Problem is, teasing Sam is a huge turn on, and it's just hilarious in general. And that's putting it lightly.

So, despite his absolute urge, Gabe continues to keep it slow. His hand lands gently on Sam's chest and he slides it so, SO, slowly down Sam's torso. 

When he gets to Sam's belt buckle, Sam takes a harsh breath in and arches his back. Gabe raises his eyebrows at the other boy but Sam's eyes are screwed shut in what has to be absolute pleasure. 

Gabriel tilts his head down toward Sam's chest and takes a nipple in his mouth, sucking and twisting it between his teeth. Sam squirms, writhes, beneath Gabe and Gabe smiles, humming against Sam's skin.

Gabe moves down and breathes softly out onto the sticky skin just above Sam's jeans.

Sam whines again, his abs flexing a little, and grabs hold of Gabe's hair.

"Wow, Sammoose, I've really got you goin', don't I," Gabe says, a husky tone to his soft voice.

"Yeah," Sam breathes, his neck and voice almost comically strained.

Sam grasps at Gabe's back, digging his fingernails in and arching his back slightly as he gulps in air. 

Gabriel laughs and compliantly unbuckles, unbuttons, and unzips Sam's jeans, pulling them down easily.

Gabe crawls up toward Sam's ear and whispers huskily, "You know, Sam. There are still other people in the house right now. We could easily get caught."

Sam, who's buried his face in Gabe's neck, mumbles against Gabe's skin, "Too fucking bad for them. I think it's hot."

Gabe allows the tingling sensation that Sam's lips leave against his neck to travel downward and into his hard cock.

"Holy fuck, Sam, where that come from?" Gabe says, a mocking smile in his voice.

"It came from my urge to fuck you up and down and into your headboard," Sam replies quietly.

Gabe's lips part in surprise and he stares at Sam, who stares softly back. Gabe breathes out a laugh.

"Please, Gabe?" Sam nearly begs.

Gabe stares at him a moment longer, his brows raised and his eyes locked on Sam's before he closes the space between them and kisses Sam hotly.

Sam kicks off his jeans and drags his hand down Gabe's back, landing it on the shorter man's ass.

Gabe rolls his hips, sliding his denim covered erection over Sam's cotton covered one. This gets a silent groan out of Sam and Gabe smiles against Sam's cheek.

"Hey Gabe?" Sam says breathily.

"Huh," Gabe replies.

Sam abruptly rolls over and pins Gabe beneath him. Sam's head tilts down and he stares up through his eyelashes at a Gabe, a dangerous, predatory look in his dark eyes.

"I don't bottom," Sam says with a low, chesty growl. 

Sam reaches down and tugs at Gabe's jeans. He slowly, teasingly unbuttons Gabriel's pants, unzips them, and shoves them down. He crawls backwards on his hands and knees and stares up predatorily at Gabe. He licks his lips slowly as Gabe watches him pull the jeans off and throw them across the room. Gabe grimaces when his belt buckle makes a sound as it smacks against the wall. That noise might concern a few people.

Gabe lets the thought go, though, as he watches Sam crawl slowly back up. Sam balances himself on his hands, one on either side of Gabe's torso. Sam lets out an animalistic rumble emanating from his chest as he pounced down and bites at Gabe's neck.

A moan penetrates Gabe's parted lips and his hips involuntarily hitch up into Sam's, showing off his arousal.

Gabe bites down hard on his lower lip to dilute a louder moan as Sam kisses and nips at the skin on Gabe's jaw, behind his ear, down his neck, across his collar bone. 

Sam pushes Gabe's boxer briefs down toward his ankles and wraps his hand lightly around the boy's thick cock.

"Hol-- fuckinfuck, Sam!" Gabe whisper-yells. 

"Wow, Gabe. Barely touching you," Sam snarls against the dip at the base of Gabe's neck. Sam rocks forward a little and kisses the skin there, then leans back and squints, gauging Gabe's reaction as he begins to pump his hand slowly, increasing the pressure he puts on the appendage when he slides upward toward the head. 

"Gabe, I want you to listen to me closely," Sam whispers, smiling when Gabe shivers at the feel of Sam's lips against his ear.

"Ah! Huh," is all that escapes Gabe's mouth as he breaths heavily, his bare chest pressing up against Sam's.

He concentrates on the feel of his skin against Sam's; on the feeling of Sam's hand pumping at his throbbing cock; on the feeling of Sam's lips brushing easily over the skin behind his ear.

Sam brings his mouth back, resting it beside Gabe's ear, and says with a smirk, "You're gonna lay here, and you're gonna be a good boy, and you're gonna come for me."

"Yes. Yes, anything, Sam," Gabe breathes, locking his fingers around a chunk of Sam's brown hair.

"Good," Sam whispers in reply, finality evident in his tone.

Sam slithers down to watch his own hand work Gabe's cock and moans, which sends a shiver up Gabe's spine. 

Suddenly, Gabe feels a warm feeling build up in his lower abdomen and he nearly screams, managing to suppress said scream by throwing his arm over his mouth and biting down hard on his lip.

"Sam...I-I'm gonna...fuck!" Gabe's muffled voice resonates from under his arm and through the still air. 

"That's right, Gabe. Do it. Come for me, baby," Sam growls, pumping faster.

"Fffffu-" Gabe's moan chokes out and the first line of come spurts out onto his belly.

Sam smiles predatorily and continues to work Gabe through his orgasm, appreciating the tremble of Gabe's body beneath his own.

When Gabe is back down to only half-hard, Sam crawls back up and kisses Gabe lazily, the residue of a cocky smirk still bending his mouth upward.

"Hey, Gabe?" Sam whispers, cupping a hand over his own erection.

"Yeah?" Gabe replies hoarsely, not able to see Sam's hand moving.

Sam sits back on his haunches and rubs himself through the cotton, which is becoming an uncomfortable prison to his pulsing cock.

When Gabe notices that Sam hasn't responded, he looks down wearily, not expecting to see Sam crouching over him, his head hanging back and his mouth hanging open, as he slides his hand up the shaft of his heated appendage through the cotton, his eyes following Gabe's.

"Oh, sweet Jesus," Gabe breathes, and groans as his cock becomes painfully hard again. "You little shit, Sam."

Sam smirks, sucking his lip under his front teeth and let's it go slowly, watching Gabe the entire time from his spot above the shorter man.

"Why ya gotta hurt me like this, kiddo?" Gabe jokes and Sam glowers playfully at him. 

Sam locks his hazel eyes in Gabe's sharp amber ones and sits up. He slowly tugs down his boxer briefs, swaying his hips as he brings them down to his knees, then his ankles, and finally, balls them up and chucks them at Gabe's face. Gabe closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of the fabric, smiling against the cotton.

"You little pervert," Sam mumbles against the crevice just beside Gabe's hip bone, feeling Gabe shiver under him. 

"I should fuck you while you're mad all the time, Samsquatch," Gabe says, allowing a guttural moan to jump through his lips. "Cause I gotta say, kiddo. This is really hot."

"Hmhm," Sam hums his approval of Gabe's statement, brushing his lips closer and closer to Gabe's dick.

Sam snakes upward and latches his lips onto Gabe's, his own chest heaving. He gets lost in the taste of Gabe for just a second before his hard cock slaps up against his stomach and he remembers what he came back up here to do. 

Sam runs a thumb over the precome beading at the head of his heated flesh and rubs it over his cock. He lowers himself and Gabe thinks he's just going to kiss him again, but then Sam slides his erection against Gabe's and let's a sigh escape from his throat. 

He quickens the pace and it isn't long before his come mixes with Gabe's on the shorter man's stomach and Gabe is coming again, as well.

"Motherfuckingcocklickingsonofab-" Gabe's continuous cuss is cut off by Sam slapping his hand over the shorter boy's mouth and smiling.

"You are such a potty-mouth, Gabe," Sam says quietly.

"Yeah, well, you know fuckin' what, Sam? It doesn't exactly help that you made me come twice," Gabe says in mock complaint, his voice muffled by Sam's hand.

Sam smiles gently down at the boy and collapses beside him, still completely naked, which doesn't bother him, considering Gabe is also naked.

"Wow...that was..." Gabe smiles and shakes his head, then finishes his sentence in quiet awe. "Wow."

"Hey Gabe?" Sam asks and doesn't wait for a response before adding, "I think...I think I might like you..." He takes a deep breath in and turns his head toward Gabe who already has his eyes locked on Sam. He smiles again. "Just a little."

Gabe rolls his eyes and looks back up at the ceiling, then let's out a bubbling laugh that shakes the entire bed. 

Sam smiles at the bumpy white surface that is the ceiling.


	20. Uncle Bobby is Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bobby Singer, the Winchester boys' uncle, is finally done with a job in and calls Sam to make sure he's okay.

Sam half-lays, half-sits on the couch, his arm tucked idly around Gabe's shoulders, with Gabe's head nuzzled up beneath Sam's chin, and the shorter man's arm hanging tenaciously on the arm around his neck.

"Breaking News, from North Carolina: an eleven year old boy, Ben, goes missing from his quaint home in Greensboro. Mother, Lisa, 24, reports that the last time she saw him, he was playing a shooting game with two friends outside," a short, curvy anchorwoman with wavy brown hair and medium skin says on screen. Even frowning, and even wrinkled slightly with age, Sam thinks she looks beautiful. 

Another woman, average height but a little too skinny, with long, curly, dark brown hair, almost black, appears on the screen. Her eyes shine with tears and her tanned cheeks are streaked with stains where tears have been falling from her brown eyes.

"I looked out the window to check on him. A minute later I looked again and he was gone, along with one of his friends. The other was knocked unconscious, splayed out on the ground-" she pauses when he voice cracks slightly and covers her mouth, another tear running down her soft cheeks. She takes a few quick breaths brides adding, "Please. Please if anyone out there knows where he is, just..." a sob wrecks her body and she can't finish. She holds a hand up toward the camera and the video stops. The camera switches back to the anchorwoman, whose name is spelled out on the bottom of the screen. 

The anchorwoman, Jodi Mills, has grim expression on her face. She takes a breath before speaking again.

"The boy was last seen wearing a leather jacket, a plain white t-shirt, and light blue denim jeans. His hair is ashy-blonde and spiky, and his eyes are green. If you have any information on his disappearance, please contact authorities."

The screen switches back to the main reporter and they move on to a new story so quickly, Sam is almost offended. But he just shakes his head, completely disappointed in the world in general.

"What a sad story," Gabe says, and when Sam looks down at the shorter boy, he sees a genuine frown on his face. "Why would they switch to another thing so fast? That's just kind of...dismissive of the entire situation. I mean, it obviously matters a lot to some people."

Sam just smiles and cranes his neck, planting a kiss on the top of Gabe's head.

He and Gabe are too alike; it's almost impossible to describe it in words.

"Sammy," Dean says quietly, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen. 

Well, Sam thinks to himself, doorway isn't exactly the right word for it.

Dean leans casually against the arch that looks like an entrance to the Taj Mahal, and acts as if that's not exactly what it probably is, considering the amount of money that the Shurley's obviously have.

"Hm," Sam replies with a grunt more than a word.

"It's uncle Bobby. He wants to talk to you about dad. Says he didn't get any of your messages because he was caught up in a job in Washington State."

Sam's eyes widen and he whips his head to the left to stare incredulously at Dean. He shifts to get up and grab the phone, but Gabe whines and latches his fingers tightly onto Sam's shirt. Sam looks down and smiles, shaking his head, then tells Dean to just bring the phone to him.

Dean rolls his eyes and glides over to hand the cell to Sam.

"Don't roll your eyes at me like you and Cas are any better," Sam chides playfully and let's out a short, menacing laugh when Dean's face flushes and he turns on his heels, walking away quickly.

"Bobby?" Sam says into the phone, though Dean already told him whom it is. 

A slightly muffled voice on the other end of the line makes Sam smile broadly. 

"Sam! You boys better be playin' nice with them Shurley boys," Bobby's voice crackles over the phone and Dean furrows his brows.

"Bobby, where are you? You're breaking up," says Sam, fiddling with a strand of Gabe's hair.

"I'm on m..." There's no sound for a second, save for a noise that sounds like waves sliding gently up to shore, and then Bobby's voice is back, "...back to the hou...ust crossed t...order between Oregon and Idaho, couple kilome...utside of Boise."

"Why didn't you get any of our calls or messages when you were there?"

"My cell h...rrible reception. Sti...oes from...ound of it," Bobby replies, then chuckles easily. Bobby is always so serious that it warms Sam's heart when he gets to hear the older man's laugh or see his smile. "Sorr...out that, Sam. You know I wo...ever abandon you like that."

Sam's voice comes out a lot more softly than he expected as he says with a smile in his voice, "Thank you, Bobby."

"Ah, no pr...lem, boy. I'll tr...call you when I get home. Better rec...tion there."

Sam smiles into the phone, though he knows the man on the other end of the line can't exactly see it, and snaps it shut, calling for Dean because he knows damn well that Gabe will complain is he even thinks about getting up. Apparently Gabe enjoys cuddling.

Dean walks shamelessly back in, his shirt gone, and Sam hands him the phone.

"Dude. Seriously. What the hell?" Sam says, holding his hand out towards Dean. 

Dean looks at him in mock confusion, putting his hands up as if he's no clue what Sam is talking about.

"Dean, you don't walk around other peoples' houses with your shirt off," Sam says, annoyance and admiration in his voice.

Gabe stifles a laugh beside him and Sam smiles a bit, raising his brows expectantly.

Dean glowers at the younger boy and walks back to the kitchen, where Cas is most likely awaiting Dean's arrival.

Sam feels Gabriel shift beneath his arm and feels his lips planting an affectionate kiss just below his jaw.

He cranes his neck and look down at the shorter man, brows furrowed. 

"What was that for?" He asks softly, a child's amusement and curiousity in his hazel eyes.

"Nothing in particular," Gabe pauses, then visibly decides to add whatever he hesitated to say. "It's just...you're really pretty when you smile."

Sam smiles lightly, able to feel his dimples, and Gabe smiles back up at him. 

God, I love this boy, Sam thinks to himself as he gazes softly down at Gabe, amourousness present in his eyes. I love him...a lot.


	21. Where There Are Cuddles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jsyk, to me, Dean seems like the kind of guy who would take longer in a meaningful relationship, especially with someone he initially was complete strangers with. So, no, no Destiel smut quite yet, I'm so sorry.

Castiel's eyes flutter open and he turns his head immediately to the right. An instinct, probably, to check if his door is closed. But all he sees is Dean's sleeping face.

He watches as Dean breathes in, deciding to cherish this moment. It isn't often, after all, that he gets to witness Dean's features staying this delicate for this long. His eyes are closed and his eyelashes rest softly over the bags under his eyes, which aren't exactly noticeable unless he's this close up to someone. (And even now, he's so beautiful). His lips are parted in a quiet snore and his left cheek presses against the pillow hard enough that it squishes his face. The slightest shadow of stubble covers his sharp jaw and just above his upper lip. Cas notices, for the first time, that his smile lines, despite years of abuse from his father and living with the fact that his mother died in a freak accident, are a little more visible than most peoples'.

Cas shifts, attempting to keep Dean from waking, and runs a hand gently through the blonde man's hair. He relishes the soft spikiness of it.

Dean's eyes open so suddenly that Cas jumps away and recoils his hand.

"It's rude to stare, Cas," Dean whispers, amusement evident in his quiet voice. 

Before Cas can get a word in edgewise, Dean leans over and presses a tender kiss to the younger man's lips. He pulls away, his lips still only a centimetre from Cas', and smirks cockily.

"Music, anyone?" Dean asks suddenly, waving an iPod between his and Castiel's face. He turns and plugs it into the dock. It takes a second before a song starts playing. Unfortunately for Dean, it starts in the middle of the last song Dean was listening to. Which just happens to be, instead of his usual classic rock, a song by Train.

"The way you can't cut a rug, watchin' you is the only drug I need; so gangster, I'm so thug, you're the only one I'm dreamin' of, you see," the lighthearted voice sings from the speakers and Dean flushes the brightest red Cas has ever seen in his life. 

"I, uh..." Dean scratches the back of his neck and quickly turns to shut it off. "I was...thinking about you...so I turned that on."

"Dean, I think I might be in love with you," Cas smiles, a snarky hint to his voice. 

Dean's shy smile falls and his tone becomes serious as all fuck.

"Cas...in all honesty...I feel the same way. I just...I'm scared to say it out loud...I don't want to admit to it when I don't know for sure and especially when you still have the chance to leave me," Dean says softly, an inexorable, heart-breaking sadness in his voice. "Not when you can still change your mind, leave me for someone better."

It's silent for a long moment, and Cas thinks Dean may have fallen back asleep after such an undaunted speech. But Dean's eyes flit back up toward Cas' face and Cas caresses Dean's neck, bowing his head to lean his forehead against Dean's.

"Dean, that's the sweetest thing anyone has ever said." Cas pauses, then continues with a dissonant tone in his voice. "And the saddest," Cas squints, his brows pulling in with concern. He frowns lightly and continues. "Dean, this...delusion...that I'm going to just up and leave is becoming archaic. I'm not...going anywhere." A short, harsh laugh escapes Cas's throat before he adds sharply, "And I sure as hell am not letting you go anywhere either. This isn't the only reason we're together, albeit it's the only reason we know the other exists, but we live...in the same house, Dean. I think I would get a little awkward if either of us broke...whatever this is...off."

Dean takes a moment, visibly rolling Cas's explanation through his head, then gives an almost imperceptible nod and furrows his brows, kissing Cas' nose.

"You're right, Cas...you're right," Dean replies in a quiet voice. He hesitates, then cups his hand around the back of Cas's neck and pulls him in. "Come'ere."

They kiss, gently, slowly, passionately. Cas remembers back to the first time they kissed and smiles delicately against Dean's mouth. 

When he pulls away, Cas buries his face in the skin on Dean's neck and drifts back into slumber, dreaming contently about his future with the boy who's curled himself around Cas, Dean's arms encircling the brown-haired man, the only thing visible as they snuggle comfortably under the blanket being Cas' dark mop of hair resting beneath Dean's face.


	22. Make Out Sessions Are Great

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean may be angry with Sam but Cas makes it all better.

"Well why the FUCK didn't you tell me, Sam!" Dean slams down a green washcloth, which he'd been using to clean the dishes he'd insisted on doing. "Man, I coulda done something about it! I coulda said something that woulda sent him crying!"

"I didn't tell you because I knew how angry you'd get with dad for calling and that you'd pull some bullshit accusation out of thin air aimed at me just so you could find some flimsy explanation about how John got my number!" Sam retorts frivolously.

Dean stares at the boy incredulously, wanting to smack the hard glare right off his brother's face.

"You do not get to do this again, Sam, not this time. Not the way you did with that asshat Zachariah! You get call from someone who verbally abused you, and you tell me, Sammy! You don't keep these things from me!" Dean's statement starts in a calmly warning torn but turns volatile and loud as he continues.

"Dean..." Sam's eyes are wide, his head shaking defensively. His lips pull apart, lining up to spew the next obscenity that is poised on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he decides to try calmness as he continues. "I didn't do this for shits and giggles. I refrained from telling you because I knew exactly this would happen if I did. I'm completely regretting telling you already."

"Then why the hell did you tell me at all?" Dean asks quietly, a cold glare in his eyes.

"Because. I decided it'd be a lot less counter-productive, instead of sitting there with my balls tucked between my legs and my head up my ass, to tell you what happened so we could do something about it." He pauses, adding adamantly, "Together. As a team."

Dean admires his younger brother's undaunted fervor, and he respects that his brother has found the courage to tell Dean about the phone call even when it's completely obvious Sam knew his older brother would react like this.

But Dean doesn't want to deal with this as a team. He wants to do this alone so he can protect the boy, as always. Old habits die hard.

Dean shakes his head and looks away, searching for something in the green wall, the shade of which matches perfectly the washcloth Dean's picked back up.

Patterns with patterns is a prominent detail at the moment, as well. Sam's behaviour lately, ever the stubborn boy, reads along the lines of how their father acted most of the time. 

Their father's IQ was just never as high as Sam's.

So Sam is stubborn AND sharp.

Not a good combination, in Dean's book.

Sam shakes his head defeatedly at Dean's obvious intent on not answering, and storms heatedly back to - Dean assumes - Gabe's room.

Dean drops the washcloth again and leans over, back hunched, fitting his face thoughtlessly into his hands and resting his elbows on the edge of the counter. He sighs heavily, subconsciously twisting his face into a look of pure frustration. 

Dean loves his brother with all his heart, and Dean knows Sam is right about needing to do something about John calling the younger boy, but Sam's attitude toward things like this can become infuriating. 

Sammy shouldn't have to deal with John. Not like this; not alone and not even with Dean by his side. Dean can take a punch and throw more than enough to knock out three grown men at a time, but Sam collapses under even just a little verbal abuse and Dean knows obliging to the boy's silly delusion of responsibility toward making John obsolete in both their lives would inevitably make Sam go into an irreversible emotionally devastated state. Allowing the boy to hate Dean for an indefinitely short period of time is far better than further sacrificing the well-being of Sam's state of mind to a spectacularly irrelevant cause. 

Cas suddenly stumbles into the kitchen in hilariously disconcerted chagrin. Dean raises his eyebrows expectantly.

For a moment, Cas only shifts his eyes lazily around the room, obviously completely disoriented, until his eyes settle easily on Dean's smirking lips.

"Hey, pal. What are ya doin' up and about so early?" Dean asks gently, attempting to restrain a laugh from bubbling up through his throat and out his mouth.

"I..." Cas sighs doggedly toward the couch, then looks back at Dean and squints his eyes. "What?"

Dean slowly raises his eyebrow and smiles a little. 

"Oh, Cas," he says, taking the younger man by the shoulders. His eyes roam Cas' face, which is twisted in confusion, and, shaking his head lightly, leans in to plant a kiss on Cas' cheek. 

"Yes, Dean?" Cas says quietly, Dean's face being only millimetres from his own. 

"We are never letting you get drunk next to the school again," Dean says firmly but still with a hint of silent sympathy in his voice. 

God, he just wants to push Cas up against the counter and...

Shut up shut up shut up shut up, Dean thinks to himself. It's not so much that he doesn't like thought of fucking Cas specifically against the counter, and not even that he doesn't like the thought of fucking another man - that one a little less so, maybe - but Cas needs him right now and he doesn't like that his head is in the gutter when he's supposed to be seriously helping someone. 

In the end, he allows his mind to drift just a little to the thought of shoving the younger man against a wall and biting his neck 'til he comes in his pants.

Ah, godfuckingdamnitmotherfuck.

Dean hasn't heard a word that Cas has said but he dismisses it all as he hooks his fingers under the waistband of Castiel's sweatpants and pulls the younger man toward him. Dean's gaze drifts softly across Cas' face and lands on his lips, which have parted in perfect surprise. He peeks mischievously back up at Cas in a silent request for permission to kiss him breathless. When Cas just blinks slowly, Dean takes the opportunity and leans in. He kisses Cas slowly, their lips moving easily, comfortably together. Dean's hands skim over Castiel's body; his shoulders, his forearms, his chest, his waist, Dean's thumbs running over Cas' surprisingly built abdominal muscles. 

Dean holds Castiel by the hips and gently pushes him up against the edge of the counter. 

"Dean, what..." Cas starts, but his words turn into a light groan when Dean nips at the sensitive skin behind his ear.

"I so wish we were alone right now, just so I could fuck you right up against this counter," Dean whispers quickly against Cas's earlobe.

Castiel's next breath catches in his throat and he coughs a little. Dean chuckles at the other man's surprise.

He leans back in, pinning Cas to the counter using his own body weight, and kisses Cas desperately, putting everything he has into that kiss; every emotion, every centimetre of bare skin, every available atom, every urge and want and need, every feeling of angst and pride and love and care and admiration and shame and guilt he's ever felt in front of Cas and in his entire life. 

He can't lose Cas. Not now, not ever. Because what they have, what they could possibly have: it scares him half to death but it's the best thing he could ever want or need so recklessly, so plainly, so indubitably. He wants Cas, wants to be with him, wants to be Cas's forever, Cas's wonderland and his absolute love. 

Dean wants the mystery, the uncertainty, the inevitable levity, the comfortable affection, hell, the fighting and hating and making up, of being with Cas. He wants Cas.

He grabs Cas behind his thigh and lifts him up onto the counter, thinking about all these things as he pushes deeper into the kiss, running his tongue dominantly, possessively, over Cas'. 

The heated kiss settles after a minute, and Dean leans his forehead against Castiel's, his eyelids falling gently over his bright green irises and dilated pupils, a ridiculously sated smile crossing his face.

"Dean, I really...really love you," Cas says, breathing heavily against the blonde man's forehead as he brushes his lips across Dean's slightly numb face.

"Cas, d-don't...say that. Please," Dean whispers pleadingly. "Man, I...I'm not a good person. I...I-I yell and scream and hit things and get drunk and smoke and-and...Cas, I...I have too many scars. Inside and outside. Just too many. And you couldn't possibly love me if you knew how dark my dark side really is."

"Dean?" Cas says, adding a shrill tone to his otherwise soft voice. "Shut. The fuck. Up. Or I swear to whatever the hell exists that I will scoop your eyes out and shove them down your throat."

Dean leans back, an alerted look in his eyes, and puts his hands up in surrender.

"Whoa, there, Cas. gettin' a little too sadistic for my taste," Dean says mockingly. But after a second he puts his arms down and settles back in between Cas' legs. "Okay, Cas. Okay. I love you, too, buddy."

Dean smiles and they sit there for a moment longer before Cas breaks the comfortable silence and says with a laugh, "And stop calling me 'buddy', Dean. It's weird."


	23. Why's Is Cas Always Drunk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabe loves Cas, and he wants to make him better, but he's not happy about the younger boy's insistant urge to turn to alcohol. Fortunately, Sam loves Gabe, and that's just about all he needs.

"Be on your absolute BEST behaviour, Gabriel. These are guests," Michael's tone is warning, but Gabe turns and glares at the older man.

"Why, Mike? It's Meg and Ruby. Since when am I required to be kind to those two...demon-things?" Gabe asks, turning back to scrub a white China plate.

"Because, Gabriel. Meg is bringing her girlfriend, and I'd like to make a reasonably decent first impression."

"Meg has a girlfriend?" It's not the fact that Meg isn't straight that's surprising to Gabe. It's the fact that she could get anyone, besides her sister, to like her at all, much less in that way.

"Charlie Bradbury," Michael mumbles, setting a plate and a few utensils out onto a pale-green placemat which, surprise, surprise, matches the colour of the wall.

Gabe furrows his brows suddenly and sets down the dish at the same time as he whips his head up, squinting out the window at nothing in particular. He turns quickly and stares incredulously at his brother, still squinting.

"Jessica Moore's cousin?" He asks in a dubious tone.

"Yes, I believe so."

"Well, suck my balls, that's a surprise," Gabe says, turning back to the task at hand and smirking, as he knows his older brother will be annoyed with his choice in language.

"Gabriel..." Mike sighs, but doesn't say anything more, and Gabe knows that Mike knows damn well by now that coddling will do nothing to improve the trickster's attitude.

"Oh, come on, Mikey. You know you love it."

They stand in silence then, the only noise in the still air the clink of glass against glass and stainless steel utensils against mahogany wood. But Gabe's attention is soon ripped away from the many dishes in the sink when Dean rushes in, obviously attempting to look calm - for whose sake, Gabe can't know.

"Gabe? Can I talk to you?" Dean says quickly, too calmly, and Mike looks up, raising a brow but saying nothing.

They make their way out to the den and Dean turns suddenly, stopping Gabe in his tracks.

"Dean, wha-"

"Cas is having a mental breakdown. He's got, like, three entire empty bottles of whiskey on his bed and he's sitting in a corner, rocking back and forth, and mumbling s-something about...teddy bears and-and vacuum cleaners and a...a talking...soda can?"

Gabe raises his eyebrows slowly and stares blankly at Dean before turning and running upstairs as quickly and quietly as possible.

Gabe feels rather than hears Dean's soft footsteps padding behind him on the carpeted floors as he skids left when he reaches the top of the stairs. He bursts through Castiel's door and shifts his eyes around the entirety of the room before he spots Cas, curled up in a tight ball on the floor in the far corner, his lips moving but no sound escaping - at least from where he's standing.

Gabriel rushes to his little brother (little, in every sense of the term right now) and crouches next to him, checking anxiously for new injuries.

"Cas?" Gabe chokes out in a whisper. "Cas, you in there? Cas." He grabs hold of his brother's face, a cheek in either hand, and forces Cas to look up at him. There's a panicked look in the younger boy's blue eyes, as if he's not a clue where he is or who's standing in front of him. "Cas, it's me. It's Gabe. Come on, buddy."

"Gabe," Cas breathes shakily. His hand reaches up and he pokes Gabe's nose, saying, as he does this, in a gravelly voice, "Boop."

"Jesus fuck, Cas! We'll have people over in less than three hours!" Gabe squeezes his eyes shut as he looks down and mutters something along the lines of "Why couldn't this have happened some other time. Fuckin' cock sucker mother of-"

Gabe doesn't finish his sentence because he puts all of his energy into chucking a balled up pair of jeans at the wall. Dean noticeably cringes when they hit the wall forcefully enough that a loud thump echoes within the room.

Gabe breathes deeply for two minutes and thirteen seconds - he counts - before he's ready to even crouch down next to Cas again.

"Cas? I'm going to give you several instructions and I need you to listen very carefully, okay?"

Cas just nods a little and allows Gabe and Dean (who'd run over to make sure Cas was okay) to help him up and walk him to the bathroom.

Gabe speaks to both of them, as Castiel is completely drunk out of his shit and it couldn't matter less what anyone says right now.

"Cas is my little brother, so I don't exactly feel like having to see his dick quite yet. Dean, I need you to get him into a cold shower. I'll be back up here with coffee within..." Gabriel pauses to turn his head and leans backward out through the doorway of the bathroom. He squints at the clock resting on Cas' bureau and finishes his request. "Seven minutes."

Dean nods and closes the bathroom door without a second glance or thought as Gabe leaves.

Gabriel walks out of his brother's room, leaving Dean - whom he knows is completely capable of helping his younger brother out of his clothing and into the shower without a dirty thought in his mind - and shakes his head, a tear falling over the edge of his bottom eyelid without prodding and slipping as silently down his cheek as his feet are padding down the stairs.


	24. Brotherly Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam calms Gabriel to an infinite extent and it's utterly lovely.

Sam's feet fall quietly against the carpet as he makes his way back to the den. But his step falters when he sees Gabe's face over the railing of the stairs that lead up. His head bobs slightly as he ascends but Sam can see clearly the tears streaking his cheeks. 

Sam stares long enough to catch Gabe's eye and Gabe rushes to get to the bottom of the stairs, now, falling loose-limbed into Sam's long, outstretched arms.

Sam holds the short blonde boy protectively against his muscular chest and kisses the top of his head.

"What's wrong, Gabe," Sam says, more stating it as an obvious fact than asking it as a concerned question.

"I can't...do...this any...more...Sam," Gabe gasps breathlessly between the sobs that are now freely falling from his lips. "I...I can't deal...with Cas being drunk...all the time...and...I can't...I...oh, fuck, Sam, I just...it's too much."

Sam only listens, not quite reacting to the stinging feeling in his heart that comes with seeing Gabe like this.

Gabriel leans back and looks Sam in the eye, probably expecting anything but a caring, collected look.

Sam gazes down at his beautiful, wonderful angel and brushes a chunk of hair out of the shorter man's face.

"Tell me," Sam says quietly, searching Gabe's molten-gold eyes.

"I love him, Sam, and I care about him. And I want to be there for him, every step of the way. And I don't pity him because I know he's strong, I know the alcohol is just a bump in the road. But it's...just...too hard. It's too hard, Sam, to understand what he's thinking, how he feels. Because he doesn't say it out loud. He...he-he just...smokes and-and drinks and cries and curls in on himself in the corner of his room and sleeps all day and takes an hour at a time in the shower," Gabe blurts out, tears not gone, but not tantalising his words any longer. He shakes his head and makes a pleading face at Sam before adding, "All...I can do...is sit here and feel guilty as fuck; feel like somehow it's all my fault and now I can't do anything to fix it."

The corners of Sam's mouth twitch down and he furrows his brows, searching Gabe's face, trying to find the right things to say. 

Instead of wasting a single word, though, on an empty reassurance, Sam leans down, craning his neck, and kisses Gabe softly, carefully.

When he pulls back, he says simply but sternly, "People love you, Gabe. Cas loves you. I love you. Your other brothers love you. Hell, I know Dean loves you in that friendly, almost brotherly way. You're loved. And you care about that love and you return...that love. And that's what matters right now. All ya gotta do...is love the guy. Make him know that you love him and...and that'll go somewhere. Gabe, I know it will. I know it'll make him better."

Gabe's eyes water as he stares up at the moose of a teen, his lips parted in near astonishment.

Sam holds back a shiver. He can't help but squirm under the blonde boy's adoring stare, and when he sees lips like those, parted ever so slightly, he can't help but take the opportunity to kiss them; to kiss them until they're swollen; bite down lightly on them then force them to part more widely so he can lick into Gabe's mouth.

But he doesn't do any of that because Gabe needs him now, and making out doesn't solve most problems.

Sam leans his forehead against Gabe's and asks quietly, "What's that look for?"

Without hesitation and without a second thought, Gabe answers blatantly, "You're just so spectacularly beautiful; your face, your body, your voice, your words, your laugh, your tears, your kindness, your cruelness, your coldness, your warmth, your heart and your soul and your mind and your thoughts and your secrets and your past...your eyes that the purest soul I've ever seen. The peices of you that you seem to think no one will ever love. You're so. Damn. Fucking. Beautiful. And I couldn't help but notice, Sam."

"Oh," is all Sam breathes after several long moments of complete silence, the only noise in the still air being Gabe's words ringing against Sam's ears.

"And you're right, Sam. I've just...I've gotta...make him know that he's loved and make him know that he's worth it. That he doesn't deserve the cards he's been dealt," Gabriel says with a new resolve in his voice and in his eyes. "Thank you...Sam."

Gabriel squeezes Sam's waist tightly and Sam folds his arms around Gabe's shoulders, proud that he didn't give up this time; that he tried his hardest to help with a situation he isn't completely involved in.

"You're welcome, Gabe," Sam mumbles against Gabe's hair.

They stand at the bottom of the stairwell, their arms wrapped tightly around eachother, one a life jacket for the other, for an indefinite amount of time before someone walks around the corner.

"Awwww, this is adorable!" Lucifer exclaims and Sam jumps up and away from Gabe. "Oh. Well. Don't stop on my account." He waves a hand at the two before adding, "Well, go on. Go ahead and...kiss...or whatever you two were doing."

Gabe glares at the older man, then turns and does the thing Sam was least expecting; Gabe reaches up, tangles his fingers through Sam's hair, pulls the taller boy's head down, and kisses him passionately, deepening the kiss by pushing his tongue into Sam's mouth - at first without permission, but eventually Sam melts into the kiss, not giving a fuck about Gabe's older brother standing a metre away.

When they break apart, Sam just kind of stares at Gabriel, but the shorter man is glowering at Lucifer, then smirking proudly and when Sam turns his head to see why, Lucifer's cheeks are bright red and eyes are wide.

"Jesus, Gabe. I wasn't serious," Lucifer mutters.

"Well, 1, it didn't look like you were going anywhere until I actually did something, 2, you didn't have to watch, that was a choice and you made the wrong one, and, 3, go pick on someone your own size, Lucy. Like Michael," Gabe replies, his voice changing from placid, to cocky, and finally to choleric, in that order, as he speaks.

"Oh my god, you are such a pain in the ass," Lucifer mumbles idly.

"Lucifer, you're my brother, and I love you. But you are a great big-"

"I swear to god, if you say-"

"Bag. Of. Dicks."

Lucifer stares for a few seconds, saying nothing, his jaw set and face flushing pink in obvious annoyance.

"Shut up, Gabriella," Lucifer finally says lamely before speed walking away, his head down and his metaphorical tail between his legs.

"So...that was..." Sam trails off and nods, pursing his lips outward.

Gabe just laughs and pulls Sam back down, kissing him gently this time. 

"I know," Gabe smiles, then takes Sam's hand in his own and leads him out to the den, then to kitchen.

Sam leans back against the counter and watches Gabe get to work on making coffee. Sam wonders why Gabe needs coffee this late in the day.

"So...do you guys all have girly nicknames for eachother?" Sam asks, stifling a grin.

"Hm?" Gabe looks up as if he'd been completely lost in thought, but then offers a small smile and says, "Oh, yeah. That. Yeah we, uh...that's something that started when I was born..." He sets a mug beneath the instant coffee maker and taps a few things on the touchscreen, making Sam think he's done talking until he speaks up again. "Lucifer is Lucy, Michael is Michelle or McKayla, I'm Gabriella, and Castiel is Cassie or Cassidy. It's...it's not to be mean, ya know? It's just a tradition. It's just...just a brotherly love kind of thing."

Sam laughs a little and pulls Gabriel into him, encircling his arms around Gabe's waist and smirking.

"Well...I think I'm in love with a boy named Gabriella," Sam smiles, his hazel eyes locking on Gabe's honey gold ones.


	25. A DeanCas Shower With Not So Subtle Top!Dean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My readers' tears of agony are actually quite beautiful - because I am a cynical being, the likes of which you probably don't ever want to meet in person.

Castiel refuses to take more than his shirt off. Dean is obviously becoming frustrated; Cas knows it doesn't help one bit that he'd decided it'd be absolutely hilarious to run back out to his room and shrug on his beige trench coat. That's why he did it.

Cas is highly amused by his ability to annoy other people. And he especially likes annoying Dean. He likes the attention Dean gives him when he does it. So he decides it's time for baby in a trench coat.

"Cas! Hold still!" Dean growls, trying to stay calm.

"But I don't wanna take a shower!" Cas exclaims from his spot on the floor, leaning against the side of the tub.

"Cas. You can't. Be drunk. When Meg and Charlie and Ruby get here," Dean says, holding Cas by the shoulders. Cas likes the way Dean's voice sounds when he's frustrated with him. 

He can't help himself: he reaches a heavy hand out and runs his fingers gently through Dean's hair, parting his lips when his hand encounters the spiky softness of it and gazing warily up at the older boy's moss green eyes.

Dean gazes back down and searches Castiel's face, his brows furrowed. 

Cas hates that look on Dean's face. He hates the concern in Dean's eyes and the indecisive twist of his mouth.

So he wraps his hand around the back of Dean's head and pulls him down. Cas smiles when Dean allows the kiss and when, eventually, Dean's resolve to seem in charge crumbles and he sinks into Cas on the floor.

Cas pulls away and frowns.

"Don't ever give me that look again," he commands gently.

Dean just continues to furrow his brows at first, searching Cas's face for an answer but all he finds is the boy's concern bent, undaunted frown and his heart-broken aquamarine blue eyes.

Dean nods and places his hands on Cas' shoulders, asking silent permission to take off the jacket. Cas nods once and leans his head limply against the bathtub.

"I'm sorry Dean," Cas' hoarse voice jumps sorely from his throat and floats in the air between them for a second when Dean just pauses, staring intently at Castiel's right arm.

He bites his lip, his hand reaching up and hovering over Dean's hand. But Dean shifts suddenly, releasing Cas' trench coat and sitting back on his heels.

"Cas..." Dean starts but Cas brushes his trembling fingers through Dean's hair, his crystalline blue eyes twitching back and forth between Dean's hunter's green ones.

Dean looks up, a defeated tone in his voice as he speaks again.

"Cas, don't...don't apologise. Why-why are you...apologising. I don't get it. You haven't a thing to apologise for," Dean pauses to swipe a stray wisp of hair out of Cas' eyes. "You're just...going through some things. I get it, ya know? I've turned to alcohol more than once before. And...and you're just too beautiful...too innocent to be apologising so early in life. You don't deserve the life you've been given but you're doing the best you can with what you have. And you're doing a pretty damn good job compared to some other people. So...don't apologise. Not to me, not to your brothers, not to anyone. And certainly not to yourself. Apologising for dealing with something that you can't help, that you've never been able to control, is like buying a bottle of water from a gas station, then going home and pouring the whole thing down the sink. It's pointless, wasteful." Dean cranes his neck and captures Castiel's parted lips in a soft, sad kiss before adding dubiously, "I love you, Cas. Don't forget that."

After that, Cas allows Dean to take off most of his clothing - only down to his boxer briefs - and help him into the shower. Dean turns on the water and turns to leave but Castiel wouldn't be able to stand being here alone. (Or be able to stand at all without someone to help just a teensy bit). So he snatches at Dean's wrist and pulls him back, smiling lightly at the confused look on his face.

"I...I don't think I can...stand up for very long on my own..." Cas explains and he feels a blush spreading over the skin on his cheeks and neck. "Stay. Please."

Dean hesitates then nods and says, "Yeah. Okay, Cas...okay."

Dean strips quickly down to his boxers and steps into the shower. The cold water hits him hard and stings at first but the heat of Castiel's body bids him back to the present. He holds Cas, searching the boy's dark brown hair, his content munsell blue eyes, the upturned corners of his lips, the long brown eyelashes that flit slowly down as he blinks.

Dean stares for a while before Cas notices and smiles brightly.

"So I take it this isn't 'everything is funny' and 'let's sing loudly' drunk?" Dean asks and runs his hand back over Cas' wet hair.

"Yeah, no...it's more like a...'curled up in a corner wanting to bawl my eyes out but not able to' and 'wanting to hold a gun to my head, pull the trigger, and paint the wall with my brains' and 'let's feel completely worthless with a capital W' kind of drunk," Castiel looks down, suddenly ashamed. "I...I'm so sorry, I-"

Dean smacks his hand over Cas's mouth and leans in close, a dangerous look in his eyes.

"Don't. Apologise," he whispers - growls, really. He shakes his head defiantly and and breathes out as he catches Cas' face in is hands. "Ever. Cas." 

"I..." Cas's eyes widen and he doesn't say anything for a while. Then: "O-okay, Dean. Okay..."

Dean's face twists in agony and he looks like he wants to cry. But all he does is shake his head once more and lean down quickly, attaching his lips to Castiel's in a desperate kiss. They breathe heavily against each other and Dean shoves Cas against the wall of the shower. 

Cas decides he likes this. A lot. He skims his hands down Dean's waist and they - accidentally - land on Dean's ass. He squeezes lightly and Dean groans. 

Cas nearly screams as Dean presses him back harder and massages his thumbs into the dips inside Cas' hip bones. 

Cas moves down and trails gentle kisses down Dean's neck. 

"Cas..." Dean breathes lightly, then Cas runs his hand downward. Just before he reaches Dean's slight erection, Dean says again, "Cas! Cas." He shakes his head, his soft gaze searching Castiel's. "Not right now."

"Please, Dean...I want to..." Cas trails off, his brows pulled in and eyes watering as he silently pleads, knowing how much his puppy eyes terrorise Dean; knowing how delicious Dean thinks him begging is. He adds, more softly now, "Please."

Dean shakes his head immediately, almost imperceptibly, and only kisses Cas again.

"We just need you to get better right now. But..." Dean's eyelashes float downward and he presses his own body against Castiel's, and Castiel's against the corner of the shower. "I can definitely make an exception sometime."

"Why not now?" Cas asks pleadingly. 

"Because you're drunk, Cas. And even though your consenting, I'd still feel guilty. Like I'm taking advantage of you."

"Dean pl-"

"Cas. Just..." Dean shakes his head again. "Believe it or not, I want our first time to be sweet. Spontaneous. Not...drunk Cas and concerned Dean."

'Oh,' is what Cas means to say next but it doesn't come out. 

Cas wants Dean. Wants him like the a hippie wants peace, like the earth wants nature to take control again, like the universe wants to see things die. He wants to fall asleep in Dean's arms every night and wake up to his smile every morning for the rest of his life. A month and a half isn't much to get to know a person, but that's what the rest of their lives are for. Mouths are for talking and kissing and smiling, and ears are for listening and learning and loving, and Castiel's heart is for Dean. Only Dean.

Castiel hadn't even felt this way with Meg, when they had their little summer fling about a year ago. He's never felt like this about anyone. And he wants Dean to be happy. And in all honesty, he knows Dean is right, and he agrees; Cas wants their first time together to not be a drunk mess. 

And here's the thing: Cas loves Dean. He knows he does and even if Dean doesn't believe him now, it's an inevitability. He loves Dean because Dean makes him happy, exterminated his emotional oblivion, makes him feel tingly and content and warm. He knows Dean secretly loves him back. Okay, not secretly so much as absolutely, but Dean doesn't usually say as much. 

So, instead of speaking again, Cas nods, smiling now at Dean's resolve to make this thing count.

Dean is good for him. That's more than obvious. So Cas is intent on enjoying it while he can.


	26. DeanCas almost-smut c:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean writes songs, sure...  
> But he also writes poems for his bb <3
> 
> And then hides them because he thinks they're terrible please like my poem ugh

'Feet are for walking, don't you agree?  
Lips are for talking, so please talk to me.  
Eyes are for seeing, so come on and see.  
Ears are for hearing, so listen to me.  
Hands are for feeling, so go hug a tree.  
Bodies are for living, so live on with me.  
Teeth are for chewing, so chew what you need.  
Brains are for knowing, but we can't know what's to be.

So feet aren't just for walking, they're for reaching a place.  
And lips aren't just for talking, they're for kissing a face.  
And eyes are for seeing; they're for seeing Earth rejoice.  
And ears are for hearing; they're for hearing your voice.  
And hands are for feeling, but so is your heart.  
And bodies are for living, so where do I start?  
And teeth aren't just for chewing, they're for smiling too.  
And brains aren't just for knowing, they're for loving all of you.'

Dean reads over his work one more time, smiling slightly. Until he hears Cas' bathroom door open. He stuffs the poem up is shirt at same time as he turns quickly to find Cas standing, nearly sober, in the doorway to his bathroom, fully clothed and shaved.

"Well, hello there," Dean jokes and smirks at Cas's burning, flushed cheeks. 

Cas twists his lips to one side of his face before he looks back up at Dean through his eyelashes and says, "What were you just looking at?"

"Hm? Oh! Uh...uuuhh...uh...." Dean struggles to find a viable lie as he looks around the room. "Uh....porn? Yeah! Yes, porn! Lesbian...lesbian porn." Dean plasters what he hopes is a convincing smile onto his face and waits for Cas to stop squinting so suspiciously at him.

Cas walks slowly over, pursing his lips outward. When he reaches Dean, he puts his arms on either side of Dean's body, balancing himself with his fingertips pressed against the bed. 

Castiel speaks in a low, husky voice and says, "I think you're lying to me...What did you just hide, Dean."

Dean can't help but let out a heavy, anxious breath. Not bad anxious; giddy anxious, happy anxious...aroused anxious. He likes this dangerous side of Cas. A lot. 

Dean caresses Castiel's cheek in one hand and croons at the tingling in his southern region when Cas lays his own hand over Dean's and leans in closely.

With Dean's lips now just millimetres from Cas's, Dean's voice begins to falter as he tries to speak again. Tries to lie again, really, but that fails along with his voice as he stares up into now - sexy - dark Catalina blue eyes. 

"I..." Dean tries. But as Cas stares down at him predatorily. Finally he gives in, cursing ("Motherfucking Jesus shit, Cas), and he rushes to close the gap between their lips. 

Dean's the one who starts the kiss, but Cas takes complete control - which Dean just thinks is hot as all fuck - and kisses Dean roughly, breathing into him. Cas breaks away for only a moment to land his hand on Dean's shoulder. Dean thinks he's about to press him back gently, but Cas shoves him back with surprising force and strength and Dean's lips part in surprise. 

Cas pins Dean down as the younger man climbs on top of him and straddles his waist.

He leans in closely and says in a gravelly voice, "Tell. The truth. Dean." 

When Dean just stares, Cas kisses him again, immediately pushing his tongue into Dean's mouth and running it teasingly over Dean's, across Dean's jaw, down his neck, then leveling his face with Dean's again. He presses his face close enough to, no doubt, see the freckles splattered across Dean's face but that have long since faded from childhood and are now only visible at this distance. 

"Dean?" Cas says quietly, dangerously, his lips teasingly brushing against Dean's. He doesn't wait for a response. "What was it?"

"You won't know until you find it," Dean replies, trying to sound husky but failing and crumbling under Castiel's touch. 

Cas runs his hand down Dean's chest, seemingly completely aware of where Dean has hidden the poem, and smirks when he reaches Dean's sternum and hears the crinkle of paper in the otherwise silent room. Cas continues his path downward, reaching the hem of Dean's t-shirt and hook a finger underneath.

He takes his sweet, agonising time skimming his hand upward, cherishing each hill and valley in Dean's sculpted abdomen. When Cas reaches the paper, Dean clasps his wrist and holds Cas' hand against his chest, a stifled smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. 

"I'm not a good poet," he says simply, leaving Cas to soon figure out what he means.

Cas pulls the paper out slowly, knowingly letting it run over Dean's skin, leaving a tingly sensation in his nerves - both from the coarseness of the paper and from the fact that Cas is sitting. On top of him... With a very obvious erection.

Castiel squints at Dean before he brings the paper up and looks down at the -probably messy-ish - handwriting.

As he reads through it, Dean's gaze shifts over Cas' face, gauging his reaction, watching his eyes go from squinting suspiciously to widening in surprise to softening in affection; and his lips go from pursed to parted to smiling lightly. 

Cas takes a moment after he's done reading to stare blankly at the words and then he twitches his eyes upward. Dean smiles, his heart breaking in a good way at the bright blue eyes staring back at him, swimming with...every emotion possible in this situation; loving affliction, confused fear, careful want. Persistent need.

"Whoever told you that you're a bad poet is an assbutt and they can go suck one, too," Cas says placidly, setting the paper aside and planting a gentle, loving kiss on Dean's cheek.

"Well...I told me that," Dean says pulling his chin in and pouting.

Cas leans in, and Dean thinks he's going to be kissed again - God, he really fuckin wants to be kissed again - but Cas brushes past Dean's face, and Dean misses the scratch of Cas' stubble. Clean shaven Cas isn't his thing. 

"Then you can suck an ass," Cas whispers, pressing a corner of his lips against Dean's ear. Dean shivers under the touch and nearly arches his chest into Castiel's but holds back, holds on to his own promise. 

"Whose do you propose?" Dean asks breathlessly.

Cas smiles cryptically, though Dean thinks he can guess the answer, and sits back on his heels, gazing down at Dean. But Dean just shakes his head and pulls Cas back down quickly, kissing him, his tongue grazing Castiel's.

Dean pulls away to brush Cas's ear with his lips as he whispers, "Someday, baby, I'm gonna take you so high, you won't ever wanna come down." He pulls back again and concludes lightly, "Someday, Cas. Maybe soon."

Cas smiles and collapses contently over Dean's chest, his legs still squeezing Dean's hips.


	27. Aaaannnnnnd...Queue The Tragedy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short and the title is pretty self explanatory so I don't want to give too much away other than that.

"Reporting live from just outside Jefferson City, Missouri, we have Ellen Harvelle; what's happened Ellen?" The tall newsman with soft blonde hair and deep set eyes, a serious look on his face, inquires as he stares at the camera.

It takes a second for the woman, Ellen, to speak. Probably because of the distance between the news station and the reporter.

"Thank you, Adam," she addresses the first camera, then they switch to second and she turns. "I'm standing here at the scene of a horrendous crash, where a 52 tonne semi truck slammed dead-on into the side of a red '92 Chrysler Dodge Challenger. There were no passengers. The driver, John Winchester, left the scene in critical condition - three shattered limbs, a cracked skull, large lesions to the brain, a broken nose and jaw, two broken fingers, and possible trauma to major organs - and died in the back of the ambulance on the way to the hospital. John Winchester had no known family."

Gabriel only stares, wide eyed and emotionless, at the flicker of the tv for an indefinite amount of time, the images dancing absently over his eyes.

Then sprints toward the stairs stumbling and tripping several times in his rush to find Sam and Dean.

He stops midstep when he realises that he doesn't know what their reactions will be. And that, whichever way their reactions may go, he's basically their keeper, so he'll have to figure how to deal with possibly drastically differing emotions.

What if Dean is hysterically happy about John's death but Sam completely torn up and Dean picks a fight about why they should be happy.

Gabe should have known before he made a decision. Of course it's not too late to turn back. He hasn't said anything to anyone and he doesn't have to. He really doesn't want to - the polarisation of their opinions could become an acrid argument that Gabe really is not in the mood for. 

Although...

What would telling them at different times do? Maybe they wouldn't have a huge argument in front of everyone. Maybe they'd meet somewhere private and discuss it in harsh whispers.

Castiel's mental stability is already deteriorating violently and he doesn't know if he can handle the one person who makes him feel content in his own body, and the one person outside of his family whom he loves unconditionally and the most infinitesimally perennial parts of Sam's flawless soul, going down that same path. He especially wouldn't be able to handle that if he knew it'd been him, and his voice saying four minuscule words, that had flushed Sam into the darkness of that mental black hole, that emotional regression, and that inevitable social and physical reclusion.

Maybe this is an atrocious idea; Gabe feels terribly guilty for wanting to tell them even when he knew this would set both of them off.

Would it?

He realises he's stopped right outside his room only when Sam steps into the doorway and pulls his brows in, obviously quite concerned as to why Gabriel his frozen mid step and staring into space just outside of his own doorway.

"Gabe?" Sam says softly, dropping his hand against Gabe's shoulder. When Gabe doesn't answer, Sam shifts his hand across Gabe's shoulder and runs it gently up the shorter boy's neck as he moves to stand in front of him. When Sam is standing directly in front of Gabe, he hooks his fingers behind Gabe's ears and skims his thumbs across the blonde man's cheeks. "Gabe. Baby, it's me. What's going on."

"Your father was in a car accident and he died in the ambulance I just saw it on the news I'm so sorry Sam I didn't know what to do and I don't want you to get in a fight with Dean about this please," Gabe says a little too quickly, albeit the difficulty, before his eyes shift up to look at Sam.

"Wh...what..." Sam stutters. 

"Your dad is dead, Sam..."

Sam just stares, utterly incredulous. 

"I'm sorry Sam..." Gabe gathers Sam into a hug and Sam collapses against the shorter boy. "I'm so sorry..."


	28. Speechless Dean ???? (╯°Д°）╯︵ /(.□ . \)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, not quite sure how to summarise ????

Sam lies atop Gabe's bed, contrite and content warring within his currently over-active mind. The circumstances may be what's causing this tug of war between happy and calm, and sad and angry, but these emotions are what're plaguing him so aggressively.

"Sam," Gabe's voice penetrates his thoughts and Sam slowly glances over at him, his eyes empty.

"Yes, Gabriel?" Sam whispers, his voice trembling.

"Where are you right now?" Gabe inquires as he runs his left hand back over Sam's shaggy hair and intertwines his right one with Sam's. 

Gabe tilts his head and awaits an answer that Sam is not tentative about giving to him; Sam just needs to find the correct words, the coagulation of which is only able to attempt to exemplify this quasar of emotional oblivion. Even his description to himself felt wrong and unable to put his emotions to justice.

After a long breath and a long pause as a reciprocation, he starts with an all too wary voice, "Why do things happen, Gabe? Good things, bad things, neutral things, personal things. The latter doesn't seem all that fair. I guess neither do any of the formers but...I don't...I don't know where I am, Gabe."

Gabriel averts his gaze, his eyes swimming in tears with none escaping.

"Sometimes, nothing is fair in this shit hole of a world, Sam. Nothing seems right, ever."

Sam blinks slowly, rolling his reply around on his tongue and alternate answers around in his brain. 

"I don't...know what's gotten into me, Gabe...but I...I think I'm..." Sam trails off, able to feel the disgusted look on his face; disgusted with himself, that is. "I'm happy about...about this..."

Gabe looks up his brows furrowed then raised.

"Seriously," Gabe says in incredulously. 

Sam turns his head again and questions whether Gabe is actually human and not just an archangel in disguise. The lucidity of his irises are far too otherworldly. And in all their irrevocable beauty, Sam is engulfed. He becomes lost, forgetting to speak. He understands his mind is in a dizzying, spiraling state, but he also knows he probably would have gotten lost in them either way.

All too abruptly, Sam finds the thought of the coalescence of a steamy kiss is in appropriation and he almost moves to carry out the plan but someone knocks on the door.

"Gabe?" Castiel opens the door slightly and Sam furrows his brows in seeing that the other boy - probably only a few months older than him, he presumes - has an anxious look on his face, his lips turning downward and his surprisingly bright blue eyes swimming with concerned prudence. His eyes widen for some reason when they reach Sam. "There you are, Sam! Oh, God. You have to...you have to come help."

Sam sits up abruptly and Gabe jumps a little, but Sam ignores Gabe's surprise and furrows his brows at Cas. 

"What is it, Cas," Sam speaks quickly and quietly, his voice shaky.

Cas pause for a long time before replying tentatively, "It's Dean."

"Fuck." 

Sam rolls off the bed, nearly collapses against the floor, scrambles to stand, and runs to Castiel's room.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," Sam whispers and bursts through the door.

"He-he won't talk...Sam, I'm scared," Cas says, breathless from running after Sam.

"O-okay just...just relax, Cas."

"I can't, Sam! I don't...what I do?! What the fuck am I supposed to do?!" Cas picks up his clock and throws it across the room.

"Cas, calm down!"

"Sam..." He breathes, then a sob rips through him and through the still air. "Sam, I can't..." He collapses to the floor, holding his head in his hands, and Sam hasn't a clue what to do. "Can't...lose him, Sam. Not now."

Sam walks over and takes Cas by the shoulders, shaking him lightly.

"Cas," Sam shakes his head. "You won't lose him. Wanna know why?" He waits for Cas to nod before continuing. "Because I can't lose him either. Okay? I'm gonna get him to talk, Cas. One way or another. I'm not gonna let this happen, man."

Sam hesitates then gathers Cas into a hug and let's him sob into his shoulder.

"Sam?" Dean's voice comes from behind him and Cas looks up, a dubious looks on his face at first, probably not believing what he heard. But then an ecstatic smile reaches his lips and he releases Sam, running across the room toward the bed.

Sam smiles down at his hands and looks up in time to see Cas tackle Dean, jumping on top of the blonde man and wrapping his arms possessively around Dean's neck. 

Sam grins when he sees how the force of Cas vaulting at Sam's older brother has shoved Dean back against the bed.

"Don't," Cas stops to kiss Dean's neck. "Ever." He kisses Dean's ear. "Ever." Kisses Dean's jaw. "Do that." Kisses Dean's cheek. He pauses, breathless - from running or just from Dean, Sam doesn't know. "Again."

Cas kisses Dean's lips, obviously quite excited to see him back in his own body. Sam looks away, not that he and Gabe are any better - come to think of it, he's pretty sure he and Gabe are much worse. Still, his brother's privacy is something of a given for him.

But after a while, Sam has to ask.

"Dean? What...what could have possibly rendered you speechless; I-I mean...you never do that..." 

Dean looks down, to his left, pressing his fingers against his cheeks, and then down again.

"Sam, I was listening to the radio and they said that Dad is dead...and...man, I just didn't know how to feel."

Sam stares, an auspicious smile pulling at the corners of his lips, but his eyes watering with understanding. 

"Me too, Dean," Sam replies, kind of wanting to hug him but acknowledging the painful fact that Cas has already careened lovingly into Dean and is currently still sitting on top of him. "Me too..."


	29. I Enjoy Making You Sob In Agony And Impatience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ENJOY ALMOST-SEX!

Cas cards his fingers through Dean's hair, a preposterously smug grin plastered over his face, on which he's attempting to maintain a nonchalant demeanour. 

"Well, what the hell are you thinkin' about that's making you so happy?" Dean whispers, a tauntingly husky hue to his voice as he presses his lips to Cas' ear.

Cas sighs outwardly, letting his eyelids flutter closed and allowing the tingling that starts in his ear to travel shamelessly down to his cock.

"You," Cas replies adamantly. 

Cas still lies atop Dean, his legs straddling the older boy's waist; It's been hours since he'd leaped at Dean, tackling him so hard, they'd both fallen back into the bed and Sam had left the room, satisfied with Dean's mental stability and slightly embarrassed by Dean and Cas' affectionate hugging.

"Hmmm," is all Dean chokes out in reply before he tightens his grip abruptly and Cas giggles - literally giggles - as Dean rolls them both over and balances himself over Cas, a hand bestride of either side of Cas' head.

Cas relishes the lascivious feeling of Dean's hands so close to his head, so close to running through his hair; of Dean's legs tangled between his own and of the incorrigibly beautiful sensation of their half hard cocks pressing together; of Dean's lips brushing against every centimetre of exposed skin and of his mouth creating soft and sensual bruises up and down his neck and across his collarbone; of Dean's teeth grazing over his bare chest - his t-shirt had disappeared the moment Sam did - and of his fingers hooking beneath the waist line of Cas's grey sweatpants.

Dean stops there and Cas searches his dark moss green eyes. 

"You wanna know...why I'm thinking of you? Well, other...than the fact that you are currently sitting on top of me with a very obvious, very..." Cas pauses and smirks. "Very arousing erection."

Dean flushes and nods curtly. So Cas brings Dean's face down only millimetres from his and smiles, brushing his lips against every open area of flesh.

"Because, Dean," he whispers, furrowing his brows softly and smiling a little, giving Dean what he knows is the one of the most heart breaking puppy looks he's ever seen. "I want to be with you. Forever. Be with you like this. I want to smile and cry and fight and sleep and make up and wake up and dream with you. I want to kiss you and hug you and love you for the rest of my life and-and even if..." Cas trails off and averts his eyes, trying to exile the feeling of absolute and utter dread clenching at his stomach. "When...you decide you don't want me like this - like you do now - anymore...I want to be there, by your side an--"

"Whoa! Whoa whoa whoa!!" Dean interupts Cas, giving him a very hurt look. "Cas...what do you mean 'when'?"

Cas doesn't answer, just starts squirming under Dean's accusing stare.

"Cas, I...would never leave you; could never even begin to...think about leaving you," Dean scolds, grabbing Castiel's face in both hands and forcing the younger boy to look at him. "You hear me, Cas?!" He searches the dark haired boy's Egyptian blue eyes with his army green ones and his voice becomes softer. "Don't you ever...ever...say that again, baby. Ever."

Cas is near crying now. He doesn't want to cry, not right now. He wants to go out, back to Central City Park with Dean and he wants to...wear a fuckin' flower crown and prance through the fuckin' posies, he doesn't know. 

"You know...it's almost 5:30. Meg, Charlie, and Ruby will be here any minute," Dean says quietly. Then he does something Cas just did not expect...and it's so hot that Cas nearly loses his shit and comes in his pants. Dean leans downward and presses his lips right up against Cas', maybe only a tenth of a millimetre away. Dean then adds in the huskiest voice Cas has ever heard come out of his mouth, "But I really want to stay...here with you...and do naughty things. Things that would make your family furious with me."

Cas arches his back and presses his chest up into Dean's, rolls his hips, showing off his trapped appendage. 

"Dean," Cas whines, and catches Dean's lips in his own, moaning needily into the blonde boy's mouth. "Please."

"Ssshhh. Time to greet the bitches," Dean smiles, but he reaches down and cups Castiel's arousal teasingly, trailing wet kisses down Cas' exposed neck. 

Cas wants Dean. He wants him badly and he wants him now. He wants to feel the older boy inside of him. He wants to make love to him....

Then he wants Dean to fuck him up and down the bed and straight into the wall.

"Dean. I want to feel you," Cas breathes, attaching his lips to Dean's again. "I need to. Please." 

Their chests heave into eachother and it's obvious Dean wants to give in. Wants to give in and give Castiel everything he has, every atom, every centimetre of his body, every thought and emotion roaming around in his mind.

"I want you too, Cas. God, you have no idea but-" Dean is rudely interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Come on, you two. Get your hands out of eachother's pants and get downstairs," Lucifer's voice emanates from the hallway. 

Dean looks down at Cas with an apologetic smile plastered across his face. But Cas can see the smirk tugging at the corners of Dean's mouth and sticks his tongue out before rolling back over and hopping off of Dean in a flourishing motion. He grabs Dean's hand and drags him out through the door.

"Come on. I wanna see if this Charlie girl is real," Cas laughs, blinking up at Dean and genuinely smiling for the second time in the past week.


	30. Time For Some Family Drama!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've split this 'Dean perspective' chapter into two different chapters for the purpose of suspense, albeit, it will probably be easy to guess, considering his name is mentioned.

Dean sits at the dinner table with Cas to his right and Sam to his left. Across from him sits the girl called Charlie; she has naturally reddish-orange hair, myrtle-green eyes with specks of gold and grey, pale skin sprinkled with hundreds of freckles, an easy smile and laugh, and sense of a humour and sarcasm that Dean just absolutely loves.

He's only just met the girl, but she's like a sister to him already. 

"It's leviOsa not leviosA," Charlie smiles and everyone laughs. The Harry Potter reference is slightly too obscure to Dean for him to genuinely laugh but an easy smirk plays across his face.

The laughing is interrupted by a vexatiously aprubt and inexplicably loud pounding against the front door.

Lucifer sighs muttering something along the lines of "Fuckin' filthy drunk neighbours, always interrupting during dinner - the fuck is wrong with..." But the rest of it is lost to the still air as he leaves the room to greet whomever may be at the front door.

Dean listens intently to the two voices whisper-shouting at the door. One of them is Lucifer's, he knows, but the other is indiscernible and disembodied. Apparently, though, Cas knows who the the other voice belongs to because his eyes widen in what must be fear and he snatches Dean's hand under the table, clenching hard enough to stop blood flow.

Dean only catches glimpses of what they're saying through the Taj-Mahal-esque arch of a kitchen doorway.

"Are you kidding me?! This...pletely unaccept...nd you are absol...NOT allowed here...know this damn well," Lucifer growls at the other person, who, Dean's gathered, must be a man; and older than Lucifer, judging by the coarseness of his voice.

"...ill NOT be bossed ar...my own son...done with th...ullshit," the voice retorts, becoming more and more acrid as it speaks.

"I will say this to you once, and only once, Chuck. Get away from this house, and never come back," Lucifer begins to yell and the other man, Chuck, apparently, mimicks this action. 

"I told you I will NOT be bossed around by my own son, of all people!" 

"What the hell do you th-" Lucifer begins and Dean figures out why his - now obviously - rational question was so rudely cut off when a middle aged man with the same exact mop of dark brown hair as Castiel, the same deep set eyes as Michael, the same smirk as Gabe, and the same nose as Lucifer, struts into the kitchen and looks around in utter surprise.

"What is this?" Chuck asks quickly and quietly, a dangerous tone to his voice. He turns, glaring at Lucifer, and addressing the eldest son instead of the entire group with the second question. "What the fuck is this?"

"Get. Out. Now," Lucifer repeats, obviously trying to remain calm for the sake of the guests. He's doing a great job of acting, so, Dean decides, this must be regular occurrence.

"Why are there so many people in my house, Lucifer?!" Chuck asks, a warning husk evident in his words.

"This home ceased to be your property the MOMENT YOU LAID A HAND ON YOUR SON!" Lucifer spits, and Dean can feel the venomously fastidious animosity on his lips. "NOW GET THE FUCK OUT, YOU PATHETIC PIECE OF DRUNK, ABUSIVE SHIT! GET." Lucifer steps across the threshold to the kitchen. "THE FUCK." He takes this Chuck man by the shoulder, raising his hand as if to strike him, and the next time he speaks, his voice is low, predatory, and alarmingly malignant. "Out."

Dean realises he's one of the only ones staring at the incident when Cas nudges him lightly. He looks over and pulls in his brows in a silent question.

Castiel opens his mouth to answer but can't seem to choke it out. 

Only when a silent, unprompted tear slips heartbreakingly down Cas' cheek does Dean realise who this man must be. 

And no way is he letting Cas get hurt this time.


	31. Time For Some Family Drama - pt. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second part to chapter 30

No one here had ever used his name before, only "dad", and Dean's face turns bright red in rage.

He looks down at his food, his breathing quick and his teeth gritted. He knows it's none of his business, really, but the man bruised Cas. Where does the son-of-a-bitch get off doing that? Where does he get the right? Did he pull it out of his pathetic, waste-of-space ass? 

Cas's thumb moves in circles over Dean's hand, though, in an attempt to calm him. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't know th-" Cas starts and Dean shakes his head. He looks up at Cas, into his blue eyes, a hundred times brighter when the whites and skin around them are red and puffy.

"Don't apologise, Cas. You're right - you didn't know this would happen. And it's completely out of your control so stop apologising and start getting angry," Dean pauses to kiss Cas' cheek and Cas flushes, probably because his father is standing in the doorway, having a harsh discussion with a lucifer. Dean adds in more gentle voice, "Stand up for yourself, Cas."

The softness in his own moss green eyes, Dean knows, is what pushes Cas to nod and plant a rough kiss on Dean's lips.

He stands and walks across the room. On his way, Mike grabs Cas' sleeve and shakes his head, giving Cas a look as if he's got fifty heads and a tucan beak growing out of his chest. 

"What the fuck are you doing, Castiel," Michael asks incredulously, in what is probably the farthest thing from Mike's normal speech pattern that Dean has ever heard. 

"Getting angry," Cas replies placidly, a blank stare in his eyes. He yanks his sleeve from Michael's grip and continues his walk toward the man who put him in the hospital. 

"Hey! Assbutt!" Cas yells and Dean nearly falls out of his chair trying to contain his laughter. It may have been one of the lamest insults ever but at least Cas is trying.

"Castiel? Well...I thought you were in the hospital," Chuck says cockily, smirking. Then he adds venomously, "I thought little baby Cas was sent there because of the pathetic, attention seeking stunt he pulled. What was that again? Oh right, slitting his wrists just because he can't handle taking a punch."

"You little FUCKING--" Lucifer starts, nearly vaulting across the small gap between him and his father, but Castiel cuts him off with a hand to the shoulder.

"Chuck, you are my father. Therefore, you had absolutely no right to speak to me or strike me the way you did," Cas keeps a blank, emotionless precedence in his blue eyes as he speaks.

"Aw, look at little Cassie being all mature! How cute!" Chuck announces, an infuriating smugness in his voice and on his face.

"If you'd let me finish, you would understand more clearly why I've started this the way I did," Cas continues, his voice only slightly overlapping his father's. "I started speaking because I wanted to warn you that Lucifer is not the only one here who would like to, and who gladly will, rip your eyes out of your skull and your fingers off of your hands and shove them all down your throat. I am strong, and I don't give in as easily as you assume." He squints and tilts his head, making what seems like such a subtle, innocent motion into something alarmingly formidable. "So if you...ever...come near this house again...just remember that the repercussions will be of your own doing."

Throughout the speech, Chuck's face went from provokingly cocky to satisfyingly panicked. 

The asshole looks around the room once more, then bolts away and, from what Dean can hear, through the front door. Lucifer walks back over the threshold to the kitchen and slams the door shut behind his father.

An appeased but soft smile playing at his lips, Cas walks back to his spot beside Dean and hesitates before sitting. When he does, though, he slumps in the chair, his head in his hands, and let's out a long, shaky breath.

Dean, at first tentative, then adamant, slides an arm around the younger boy, then pulls him into a tight hug.

Dean smiles into Cas' shoulder and says, "You did an amazing job, buddy." But then Dean pulls Cas farther into him and presses his lips to Cas' ear, his next words being only for Cas. 

"I think I'm in love with you," Dean breathes before kissing the dark haired boy's cheek then pulling away to look at him, a giant grin plastered across his cheeks.

Dean doesn't realise everyone but Mike is watching them until, after a minute of forehead to forehead contact, Sam clears his throat. Both Dean and Cas flush at the dozen eyes staring at the two having one of their extremely rare public moments.

Dean coughs and says, "Shut up," though no one has actually spoken, and takes Cas' hand, allowing, for the first time ever, their intertwined fingers to be seen above the table.

He's not felt this content outside of the confines of Cas' or his own room in a long, long time.


	32. Just Like Jack And Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The, uh...the title is pretty self-explanatory...

Gabe scrubs doggedly at a stain on one of the 'stainless' steel spoons from last night's unexpectedly angering - and hilarious, thanks to his younger brother's lame insult - dinner. He's been scrubbing at it for all of twenty minutes now and about ten of them ago, Luc came in to find him still working on it and asked him to stop for the sake of his own mental stability. But Gabe is resolute upon persevering. His heart may say Doctor Sexy but his OCD says "the stain must go".

The dexterity of Gabe's scrubbing, he knows, would put a machine built solely for scrubbing stains off spoons to shame.

Unfortunately - but, for a different reason, fortunately - Lucy must have told Sam that Gabe is being ridiculous again, because Sam struts into the room, a demure scrutiny in his careful eyes. He stands too far away and Gabe wants soooo badly for the Sasquatch to touch him; to pull Gabe in like he always does and kiss him breathless. 

"Hey, baby," Sam says gently. He leans against the island and folds his arms across his broad chest. Gabe looks his moose over and the pent up, festering urge to touch Sam drives Gabe to walk over and peel those giant arms away from that giant, chiseled chest, wrap his own arms around that gorgeous waist, and bury his face in aforementioned giant, chiseled chest.

"God, I love you," Gabe mumbles, his words muffled by Sam's black shirt.

"Well, I'm not quite God, Gabriel, but I suppose we both have three letters in our names and that's close enough," Sam jokes, and Gabe can hear the smile on his lips, so Gabe grins into Sam's shirt and squeezes his arms harder around the taller man's waist. Then, more softly, Sam adds, "I love you, too, Gabe. Will you stop scrubbing that spoon, now?"

"Mmm, no," Gabe smiles and tilts his head back to look up at Sam.

"Would you do it for a kiss?" Sam replies.

"Oh come on now, Sam, this isn't Scooby Doo."

"Would you do it for five kisses?" Sam asks, completely ignoring Gabe's snarky intent.

"Saaaaammmm," Gabe whines in persistent response.

"Would you do it if I lured you upstairs with the promise of cuddles?"

Gabe hesitates at first, making his teasing reluctance obvious. "Maybe..."

"Would you do it if I lured you upstairs and seduced you with cuddles?"

"Probably..."

"Would you do it if I piggybacked you upstairs and seduced you with the power of kisses and cuddles and letting you paint me naked like Rose and Jack in Titanic?"

Gabe stares Sam down, squinting mischievously, then tugs Sam's head down and kisses him.

"Hell, yes," he breathes fiercely against Sam's lips.

Sam swings Gabriel around behind him and let's the short blonde leap up onto his back. He starts running toward the stairs and Gabe admires the boy's physique, his muscular strength, his chiseled abdomen and thighs. And Gabe doesn't exactly mean to pop a boner right on Sam's back, but he knows Sam doesn't mind at all. Hell, Sam is turned on by it and Gabe knows this as a fact because Sam shudders beneath Gabe, his footsteps faltering, and Gabe can see his smile.

Sam bears right at the top of the stairs and sprints full speed toward the end of the hallway. Gabe thinks, at first, that they might crash into the wall, but at the last second, Sam skids to a stop a couple metres away from Gabe's door, and only centimetres away from the wall at the end of the hallway.

Gabe's eyes are wide, he knows, but Sam is laughing, completely out of breath, and swinging Gabe back around to the moose's front side. Despite Sam's heaving chest, he lugs Gabe back toward his room and closes the door behind them. 

As soon as the door is closed, Sam attacks Gabe, and it happens too quickly to really discern what actions came before others. 

Sam grabs Gabe by the hips and presses his thumbs - hard - into the dips just inside Gabe's hipbones. He shoves Gabe, who still has his legs wrapped around Sam's waist, against the wall and pins him there, one hand holding Gabe up by the hip and one hand clenching Gabe's wrists together above his head. Sam's lips barrage Gabe's in a rough - but admittedly kind of sweet - kiss, before Sam pulls back and kisses every inch of exposed skin above Gabe's shirt collar.

Holy fuck, Gabe thinks to himself and his golden hazel eyes widen when Sam grazes his teeth over the sensitive skin behind Gabe's ear.

A loud moan unintentionally jumps through Gabe's lips an sinks through the otherwise still air.

"Wow, Gabe," Sam growls, an easy laugh escaping his throat. "That's kinda hot."

"Ungh," is all Gabe chokes as Sam brushes his blonde hair back with his right hand and continues to kiss him, caressing Gabe's face with his left.

After that, everything moves quickly, easily. The familiar movements memorised by each of them. Pulling off shirts, tugging at jeans, shoving down boxer briefs, tousling hair, biting and sucking at skin. Soft moans and cotent gasps escape mouths and float through the air. 

But as soon as Gabe gets Sam teetering on the edge, he moves moves away, taking Sam by the wrist and leading him to the bed, a husky, predatory regard in his eyes. He pushes Sam down and runs, still completely naked, into his closet. 

When Gabe struts back out, his hips swaying, he holds a blank 30,5 by 30,5 sheet of paper and five different graphite pencils. He turns to set the sheet up on his easel and he feels Sam's eyes on him. He swivels on his heel and just barely catches a glance of Sam's eyes twitching back up to lock on Gabe's.

"Were you...staring at my ass?" Gabe laughs, squinting, not trying to hide the amusement in his voice.

Sam flushes, and looks away, a sly smile running along his lips. But Gabe slowly glides over, climbs on top of Sam, who quivers and gasps at the friction of their cocks sliding together again as Gabe settles over him, and he leans down. 

Gabe presses his lips to Sam's and says, completely shameless, "Calm down," before pausing to soften his voice. "I think it's sexy."

He jumps back up after another minute of tongue wrestling and sits, his cock still hard as all fuck, picking up his 5B and starting in on Sam's own heated appendage. 

"Spread your legs a little more," he conducts and smiles when Sam complies but adds a few more things. His eyes drift up Sam's body; his spread legs, his pulsing cock laying flat on his chiseled abdomen, his rippling chest and arms, his slightly parted lips, his delicate cheeks...those gorgeous hazel eyes that hold the key to this beautiful man's beautiful soul. 

Then Gabe realises, with widening eyes and parting lips, that Sam's hand is moving away from his mouth and slowly down his torso. He reaches his cock and wraps his hand tightly around it. Gabe watches with raised brows and quickening breaths.

"Oh," Gabe breathes and watches Sam jerk himself off, the tall man's back arching up and his chest heaving.

Gabe sketches quickly and finishes it just as Sam comes, the white liquid spurting up onto his belly as he yelps, Gabe's name on his lips.

"Holy shit, Sam," Gabe whispers as he adds the come to the drawing. 

Sam takes a moment to come down from his orgasm, his body trembling, and his his slides over the pillow as he turns to look up at Gabe through long eyelashes and half lidded eyes. 

"You like that, baby," Sam mumbles huskily. He shifts then stands and sways over to Gabe.

Sam shoves the easel out of the way, pushes Gabe back into the chair, and straddles the blonde man's hips. 

Sam kisses Gabe roughly and Gabe ruts his pounding cock between Sam's thigh and his own re-hardening dick. 

"Fuck, yes, Sam," Gabe whines and clenches at Sam's waist.

Without warning, Sam stands, flips Gabe over in the chair so he's balanced with his knees on the chair seat and hands grasping the chair back, his asscheeks spread open. Gabe squirms under Sam's scrutinising gaze but obliges and remains in the position Sam's dictated.

"God, you're so fuckin' beautiful, Gabe," Sam breathes as he bends over Gabe and brushes his lips slowly down Gabe's spine. Gabe arches his back downward and croons under Sam's rough hands. "Gabe?"

"Yes, Sam?" Gabriel answers, barely able to choke it out.

"Gabe, I want you to come for me."

Gabe just nods and tries to slow his breathing.

Sam presses his hit tongue to Gabe's pink hole and Gabe's eyes widen, his jaw dropping and his hips pushing back involuntarily into Sam's mouth. Sam smiles and licks deeper into Gabe's wet hole.

"Holy motherfuckinfuck!" Gabe screams when Sam presses a finger into his spit-lubed hole and hits his prostate right away. 

Sam laughs easily and moves his finger in and out, hitting Gabe's prostate every time.

It doesn't take too long for Gabe to come and he hears the smile in Sam's own moan. 

Sam leans back down and presses his still wet lips against Gabe's earlobe, whispering, "Good boy."

"Anything for you Sam," Gabe replies, his body still shuddering.

Sam walks over to the easel, a smirk on his lips and in his eyes. He picks up the drawing and his smile drops, his lips parting and his eyebrows shooting up.

"Well, holy shit, Gabe," Sam breathes and Gabe's arms wrap around his waist. Gabriel peeks around Sam's arm to watch the taller man look down at the sketch, gauging his reaction.

Gabe enjoys the way Sam's eyes wander over the sketch of his own body and the way the corners of his lips turn upward when he notices that Gabe included the pool of come on stomach.

"Sooo...what do you think?" Gabe asks tentatively, and presses his lips to Sam's shoulder, standing on the tips of his toes.

"I think..." Sam sets the drawing down, turns and lifts his arms over Gabe's head at the same time, then wraps them around Gabe's shoulders and continues in a quiet voice, gazing down at the blonde man, "That it's the most beautiful drawing I've ever seen."

Gabe smiles contently and stands in Sam's arms for a while before leading him back to the bed and scooting beneath the blankets. He pats a hand over the spot next to him, bidding Sam to lay under the comforter with him.

Sam complies and slides between the sheets and the covers and snuggles up against Gabe, his arms folding tightly around the shorter man's shoulders, their legs piled in a tangling mess of limbs, and Gabe's face, once again, buried in Sam's muscled chest.

Both of their chests' rises and falls start to slow after a few minutes and Gabe drifts off into a blissful, sweet-dream state, with a smile plastered across his otherwise delicate, sleeping features.


	33. How Hilarious is Happy Inebriation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cas is drunk
> 
>  
> 
> Again.
> 
> I am such a cynical story writer.

Sam wakes to Gabe's breaths fluttering over his bare chest and his own arms gripping the other boy's waist. He looks over Gabe's head at the clothing bureau and checks the time. 3:39.

He smiles. They've slept all day. He remembers what they did earlier that day and his smile broadens. He tightens his caressing arms around Gabe's waist and buries his own face in Gabe's blonde hair, taking a deep breath in and - unsurprisngly - getting a whiff of watermelon peppermint conditioner. Candy-ish. Just how the trickster of a man likes it.

Gabe's obsession with candy was kind of weird at first, but Sam got used to it over time; hell, he came to love that side of Gabe. The only reason he'd thought it was weird because was because he'd also thought that it must be some sort of fetish, but the candy was really just an anchor for Gabe's mental health. 

Gabe had explained it, telling Sam that the sweetness of it all reminds him of carelessness and happiness and bubbles and daisies and running through said daisies and sleeping in a field of daisies and smiling and in short, candy just gives him positive vibes and he needs that in his life, Sam knows.

But Sam has noticed - and is shamelessly proud of the fact - that Gabe has slowly started to eat less and less candy. He just cuddles Sam instead. And Sam is happy to be Gabe's new anchor. 

He knows it could also be dangerous. 

What if something happens to Sam? What if something happens to Gabe? What if Sam eventually can't be Gabe's anchor anymore? 

Then a more panick-inducing thought occurs to Sam and nearly sobs.

What if something happens between the two of them and Gabe leaves Sam for someone better?

Sam doesn't mean I have a frown on his face when Gabe's eyelids flit open and he gazes softly up at Sam, who evidently feels guilty as all fuck when Gabe's eyes flicker with something - sudden panick, most likely - at noticing Sam's discontent. 

"Sam?" It's just one quick syllable, choking out from Gabe's throat. But it makes Sam's heart break, nonetheless. "Baby, what's going on?"

Gabe's eyes search Sam's, who's averted his gaze and certainly does not intend to answer. At least...he tries not to intend to answer.

"Gabe, I don't...I don't want you to leave me..." The statement lolls upward toward the end, making it sound like a question. "Ever." 

Sam's voice shakes, he knows. And he also knows it breaks Gabe's heart, especially judging by the way Gabe's resolve to stay silent crumbles, a tear slipping from eye. He doesn't want to make Gabe cry so he shakes head vigorously and pulls Gabe into a tight hug.

"Nooo, nonononononono. No tears, Gabe. None. Absolutely zero," Sam whispers. "You understand me?" He cups his hand on either side of Gabe's face and pulls back to face him. "I'm serious, Gabe."

"Okay, okay. I get it," he swipes at the singular year and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes to stop the leakage. Gabe nods and adds, "No tears."

"Look, Gabe. I just...I'm so scared th-"

"It's your turn to shut up, Sam. I'm not going anywhere," he swallows and pushes strands of hair out of Sam's face. "Ever." He smiles and smooches Sam's nose playfully. "Never ever ever ever never not ever."

Someone bursts through the door and Sam sits bolt upright, Gabe still in his arms and their legs still intertwined.

Dean takes one look and winces, holding his hand palm out in front of his face. 

"Jesus fuckin Christ, Sam! Put some clothes on!" Dean yells.

"Oh so it's completely okay if Gabe is naked b--"

"No, no! God no!" He looks back up and blocks his face again, visibly grimacing, and Sam thinks that was a stupid move. "God fucking no! Just...Cas is drunk again!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake! Again?" Gabe says, his voice tinted with exasperation.

Dean opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out and he just gives Gabe an apologetic look.

As soon as Dean leaves, Gabe and Sam give eachother a look, silent communication that, before Sam met Gabe, only ever happened to Sam with Dean.

They hop out of bed and dress quickly, then run to the other end of the hallway.

They burst through the closed door to find Dean yanking Cas up by the shirt and to hear only the end of what Sam thinks has to have been the most hilarious conversation in the history of DeanCas conversations.

"--AND THERE ARE NO FUCKING SHAPESHIFTING CATS UNDER YOUR FUCKING BED, CAS!" Dean yells, taking the boy by the shoulders.

"But I don't wanna go to the banana opera with grandma!" Cas slurs, his words nearly unintelligible. "Eeennnhhhh."

"Oh, Jesus, Dean. This isn't an emergency! This is happy-drunk Cas. An emergency is sad-and-going-completely-crazy-drunk Cas," Gabe rolls his eyes and sighs, obviously frustrated.

Sam just smiles incredulously and a high pitched laugh bubbles up from his throat.

"Hoh, my god," Sam exclaims, still laughing like a kid. He turns to face Gabe and holds a hand out to motion at Cas. "Does he...do this often?"

"Ugh, no it's actually usually sad-drunk," Gabe pats Sam's shoulder, raising his brows and watching Cas, shaking his head, with a bored regard in his eyes. He looks up at Sam and shrugs. "Consider this a blessing, Sammitch."

Sam nods and leaves the room. But not before witnessing Cas shedding everything but his boxers and pulling on a trench coat then sticking his arms out to his sides and 'zooming' - as Cas insists on calling it - around the room.

"What a weird family," Sam mutters and closes the door behind him, shutting out the hilarious chaos.

"I know. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this," Gabe says, mock apology in his voice.

"Hey, Gabe?" Sam asks instead of replying to Gabe's sarcastic comment.

"Yeah, Sam-moose?" Gabe answers softly.

"You know...you could all just come...live at our house. I mean...Dean's eighteen...he technically still owns the property and even if he loses it, Lucifer could buy it...ya know...just so your dad can't bother you anymore."

"Sam that's....seriously?"

"Well, yeah, you'd just have to...I don't know, leave all your rich kid stuff here for a short period of time while all this legal stuff with Chuck gets sorted out."

Gabe smiles slowly and wraps an arm around Sam's waist. 

"Thank you, Sam," Gabe whispers as they enter his room. "Thank you."


	34. More DeanCas Showers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mutual comfort showering is always fun.
> 
> Right?

Cas falls against Dean in the shower and smiles contently. He peeps up through his eyelashes in what he knows must be a steamy gaze, and his smile widens.

"Dean, you're so warm. And soft and..." Cas pauses to run his hand backward over Dean's hair. "And fuzzy."

"Yeah, Cas...alright, I'm fuzzy," Dean replies and Cas brightens when he hears the amused smile in the other boy's voice. As much as he enjoys annoying Dean, he also enjoys making him laugh, making him happy.

They stand in silence for who the hell knows how long, the only sound being the water droplets pounding against the shower floor, before anyone says anything else.

"Hey, Cas?" Dean says and Cas nods against Dean's chest, relishing the moment of silence for just another second by not speaking. "What are your dreams?"

Castiel furrows his brows and picks his head up, throwing it backward to look up at Dean from his slumped position against the blonde haired man's chest.

"I mean, like...what do you want in your life...what do you wanna do with your talents and passions," Dean clarifies and when Cas still doesn't answer he becomes too frustrated to expect an answer anymore. "Hm. Nevermind, it was a stupid question anyway--"

"It was a beautiful question, Dean," Cas whispers and fondles the back of Dean's neck. He pulls him in and kisses Dean, their faces wet and sliding together.

"So why didn't you answer it?"

"Because...I...I wasn't sure what to say..." Cas pauses, looks to the right at the shower curtain. "I don't know...anything about my own life, Dean. I don't know what I want or who I am or what there is for me. You and Gabe know more about me than I do. You know my heart, you know my passions and wants and needs and you can predict what I'm about to do before even I know that I want to or am going to do it..." Cas furrows his brows at Dean, growing uneasiness in his stomach.

Dean smiles and damnit all if that smile doesn't hold all the love and innocence and peace and calm and beauty and perfection in the world. And with that smile, and with all the ambiguity in Dean's curious eyes, Cas wants so badly to admit everything. He hides only one thing from Dean ever and rarely does he hide it. The sadness that he so often feels is sometimes too much, he knows, and he doesn't want to make Dean feel guilty, to make Dean carry the weight of Cas' sadness in addition to his own.

But in that smile there is an absolute and unconditional love and there is an understanding and a want to feel everything Cas feels. A want to hear everything he has to say and a need to accept everything he has to give. 

"Dean...sometimes..." Cas' voice drops with his resolve and he softens as he continues to say what he so adamantly planned on saying. "Sometimes there's this...this sadness...that just takes over every part of me and I don't tell you because I don't want to make you feel guilty..."

"Cas, you can't make me feel guilty. You break my heart and you frustrate me - God, Cas, you fuckin' frustrate me - but you could never make me feel guilty," Dean immediately replies and Cas gets the inexplicable feeling that Dean already knew what Cas was going to say. There's also a warning tint to Dean's voice that Cas has come to know as finality; as 'this topic is not negotiable and this conversation in over'.

"Goddammit, I love you," Cas murmurs, burying his face in the dip at the base of Dean's neck. 

"I know, angel," Dean wraps a strong arm tightly around Cas' shoulders and pulls him farther into his chest. "I love you, too."

The ferocity in Dean's voice as he says that last part makes Cas crumble and he melts into the blonde man.

"Dean, I think I know what my dream is," Cas sniffs against Dean's chest. "My dream is to be with you forever. To spend the rest of my life with you. To share every emotion, every smile, every year, every fibre of my being with you in whatever time we have left together. I wanna lift you when you're down and I want you to be the one who lifts me when I'm down. I want to fall asleep at night with you by my side and wake up to your smile and your green eyes every morning. My dream is to be with you, in every sense of the term. I want to get married in Vermont and adopt five Ethiopian children with you, and I want to raise them like american kids with every opportunity in the world. I want the fighting and the kissing and the sleeping and the sneaked glances and the whispered love that happens under the cover of night. Dean...you're my dream."

Cas becomes a bit worried when Dean doesn't answer and a billion reasons why Dean wouldn't say anything run through Castiel's head. 

He's said too much, he's said too little, he's upset Dean, Dean thinks it was a stupid answer, Dean is overwhelmed by Cas' emotions.

Of course, he's being irrational, and Cas realises this when he looks up to catch Dean's face changing from indubitably surprised to mind-blowingly happy and Cas croons at the breathtaking smile that spreads over every centimetre of Dean's face. It's on his lips and in his cheeks and in his eyes and wrinkled into his forehead.

And Cas knows.

He knows that Dean is whom he's been waiting his entire life for, Dean is the one that will validate his existence. 

Dean is his, and he is Dean's.

Always.


	35. WHAT YOU'VE PROBABLY BEEN WAITING FOR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DEANCAS SMUT HEH

Dean pulls Cas down to the bed and lays beneath him. They're not exactly fully clothed and their hair is still damp, but the entire shower was cuddles and kisses and fleeting words and fingertip brushes.

"You know...Gabe and Sam are at the mall and Mike took the sisters and Charlie to the park and Luc is at Law School," Cas hints and leans in, though no one is around to hear what he says next. "The house is completely empty. We are alone." He stops and sing songs the next part: "No one else here."

Dean let's out a moaning breath.

Holy fuck, the tingling sensation in his cock and the simple presence of Cas makes him shudder.

Dean rolls over, pinning Cas beneath him then stands and, without further prompting from Cas, starts shedding his clothing. Cas watches him, lips parted, eyes roaming Dean's muscular body and pausing in a place they really shouldn't be paused in - in any other situation - and Dean watches Cas in return, gauging the younger boy's reaction, looking for anything that might hint at discomfort.

When Dean sees none, though, he reaches for Cas, who still lies on the bed, balancing on his side, his head propped up on his elbow, and takes the other boy's hand. Dean moves closer to the bed and places Cas' fingers on his hip, allowing the usual moan that even the smallest touch from Cas evokes to slide through his lips and into the patient, expectant air between the two.

Dean leans down and kisses Cas fiercely, eliciting every want and need and urge he's ever had to touch Cas like this and shoving it into the kiss.

Dean wants Cas. And he wants him now. More urgently than ever before, as his next thought bleeds through his mind and out his mouth.

"You know...what you did yesterday was hot as fuck," Dean whispers as he strips down to his birthday suit, nipping at Cas' ear lobe.

Dean chucks his boxer briefs across the room ceremoniously and squints down at Cas, smirking.

"It was so hot, I might just have to..." Dean doesn't finish - doesn't intend to finish - as he reaches down and runs his hand up the shaft of Cas' hard cock over the confines of the boy's own boxer briefs. The sharp intake of breath that Cas allows and the greedy roll of his hips into Dean's hand is all the answer that Dean needs to pin Castiel's arms above his head and bite down - hard - on the...arousingly... stubbled skin of Cas' upper neck.

"You taste good," Dean breathes against Cas' skin, trailing his nose downward and taking in, cherishing, the smell and the presence of his lover's body under his. "That's fortunate, considering my plans to eat you."

Cas tenses and shudders at Dean's words and at Dean's lips brushing just above the head of his pulsing cock which has decided to make a guest appearance, peeking out from the waistline of Castiel's sweatpants.

There's a short gulp of breath that catches in Castiel's throat when Dean moves his lips downward and flicks only the very tip of his tongue softly over the sensitive slit at the top of Cas' cock, teasing.

"Mmf," Castiel's voice croaks and he arches his back into Dean's touch, making Dean's cock twitch involuntarily. Dean raises his eyebrows and slides Cas' sweatpants down, slowly, teasingly. He moves with them, downward toward Cas' ankles, and when he gets there, he pulls them off and throws them on the floor with every other dirty piece of clothing Cas has ever worn and never picked up.

As Dean makes his way back up, he kisses Castiel's right leg - every centimetre of the inside of it - with an open mouth and a rolling tongue.

Dean snakes up between Cas's legs and, without even being touched, Cas whimpers and Dean can tell he's trying so hard to retain his orgasm.

"Holy fuck, Cas," Dean whispers, brushing his lips upward against Cas' shaft, breathing in the foul and sweet scent of a heated, pulsing cock. It always gets him worked up. Especially, he realises then, when it's Cas instead of some random dude. "I haven't even done anything," he adds, smirking up at the boy, though Cas has his eyes closed and his head hanging back against the pillow.

Dean wraps a hand around the base of Cas' appendage and fits his mouth over the head. Cas leans into his touch at first but gasps when Dean takes him in all at once, every single centimetre of Cas' - admittedly remarkable endowment - and his mouth hangs open in pure astonishment and ecstasy.

"H-holy shit," Cas stutters and his hips roll into Dean's mouth, seemingly involuntarily.

Dean groans around the now slick skin, knowing the vibration will please Cas, and it seems to as he arches his back further - Dean hadn't realised Cas is so flexible - and grasps at Dean's hair, a moan falling shamelessly out of his mouth.

The good part about having a giant house entirely to themselves is that they can moan as loudly as they want and still not disrupt anyone.

Which is...absolutely...

Amazing.

Dean bobs his head up and down and shoves his hands between the bed and Cas' body to dig his fingers into Cas' ass muscles, giving him more leverage.

"Dean!" Cas groans - a single, irrevocably beautiful noise that jumps, incorrigibly sated, through Cas' lips and floats through the air between them, doing backflips and somersaults and cartwheels, completely uninhibited. The way his name rolls off Castiel's tongue makes Dean shudder and he gasps, a noise that's muffled by Cas' member still filling his mouth.

Dean presses his lips down roughly against the base of Cas' cock before moving back up and making a popping noise as he pulls off. His breathing is sporadic, his heart maniacally pumping blood through every vessel and vein in his body; to every tip of the finger and every nerve ending; to every cell in his brain and every muscle in his face. And his blood may be helping his body physically but the increase in flow does not reduce his emotional exertion. And he needs hat right now because Cas is laying beneath him, completely exposed, offering himself to nobody but Dean. And just the fact that Cas is already so comfortable exhibiting himself to Dean - putting himself on full display, and, hell, even flaunting it - makes Dean so overwhelmingly and so peculiarly thankful.

Dean uses this to drive him forward, to tackle Cas and kiss every centimetre of his face.

"God fucking fuck, why do I let you do this to me?" Dean breathes, taking pauses to smooth his lips over Cas' collarbone.

"Huh," Cas breathes out before replying, a provokingly snarky smile attached to his lips. "Do what, Dean?"

Dean searches Cas' eyes and shakes his head almost imperceptibly before answering, "Why do I let you pull me away from reality and into this big, giant, beautiful place." He pauses to nip at the skin beneath Cas' stubbled jaw. "It's dangerous. I could get hurt, ya know."

Cas graces Dean with the most exceptionally, indescribably beautiful smile Dean'a ever witnessed and he tries to smile back but his so caught up this gorgeous angel's eyes.

"Because you love me," Cas whispers and pulls Dean back down, locking his lips between Dean's.

When Dean pulls back, he glues a predatory smile to his face before reaching to his right, opening the bottom drawer on the night stand beside Cas' bed, digging through some clothes, and finding the lube he already knew was there because fuck Cas' privacy while he's downstairs in the kitchen, making Dean breakfast and thinking he's sleeping.

Cas' eyebrows shoot up.

"Holy fuck," is all he gets out before Dean clamps a hand over Cas' mouth and smirks, an edge of snark to his next statement.

"You'd better relax your muscles, angel. Or this might hurt," he sneers at Cas playfully before peeling his hand away and applying a generous amount of lube to the first three fingers on his right hand.

Without extortion from Dean, Cas spreads his legs further, and Dean shivers at Cas' greedy admittance.

"I am relaxed," Cas says in a low and dangerous voice, somehow still gazing up at Dean with inexorable innocence in his crystalline eyes.

Dean smiles before sitting back on his heels, thighs beneath Cas' own thighs, lifting him. He watches his own finger press up against Cas' pink hole and shudders at the fact that he somehow just naturally knows what he's doing.

It's not that he thinks it's weird or gross - hell, he's on the verge of coming just thinking about his cock being inside Castiel. He just thinks it's curious, is all.

He moves his first finger in a circle around the puckered orifice and a small smile twitches against his parted lips both because Cas is squirming in impatient anticipation and because of his own apprehension.

When Cas is wet enough, Dean lines his finger up with the slick entrance and pushes past the first ring of muscle. He moans loudly, though it's only his finger.

Dean cants help it, though. Cas is just so warm and soft and beautiful and Dean wants all of him.

Dean rocks his long finger forward and and then back, loosening Cas' muscles, groaning contently at the feeling of Cas clamping up around his fingers every once in a while.

It doesn't take long before Dean's got three fingers inside Cas, and Cas is trembling beneath Dean, and Dean is smirking because Cas is melting under Dean's touch.

"Dean--" Cas' whine is choppy and choked and pleading. "Dean I want..."

Dean waits for a second, expecting him o finish, and when Cas doesn't, Dean gets an idea.

Make him beg.

Cas begging has always made Dean shiver, has always made him moan, has always made him want every single piece of Cas there is to want.

"What, Cas. What do you want," Dean husks, his breathing heavy and his voice predatory.

"I want you...inside of me," Cas breathes, his left hand clutching roughly at the sheets and his right hand trailing effortlessly down his own body.

"I don't know, Cas," Dean sing songs teasingly. The snark on his voice makes Cas whimper.

"Please," Cas whines - begging.

Just how Dean likes.

"Please?" Dean says in a playfully incredulous tone.

"Please," Cas repeats and this time adds in a husky but whining voice, "Dean, please..."

"Please what, Castiel."

"Please, Dean. I want you inside of me."

Dean waits a second, staring down at his Castiel dominantly, pinning him to the bed so he can't squirm.

Then he says, his voice thick, "Good boy."

Dean notices the goosebumps, starting in Cas' legs and traveling up toward his face, which is flushed bright pink, and he grins so broadly, it feels like the entire bottom half of his face is about to fall off.

So he stops teasing, satisfied with Cas' begging and with the fact that Cas got goosebumps - fuckin' goosebumps - just from Dean's voice, and lines his neglected cock up with Cas' waiting hole.

He pushes in slowly, and as he moves past the rim, his nearly collapses.

 _Holy fuck_ , Dean thinks to himself.

He pushes all the way in and, God fucking damnit, Cas feels amazing around him. The warmth and the tightness of Cas' ass around Dean's cock is rewarding and beautiful.

Dean pulls away until the head of his dick is just inside the ring of muscle at the entrance and shoves back in, knowing, now, that Cas can take it.

After a minute of this, the pressure of Cas clamping down around Dean is what drives him to move more quickly, in shorter, more choppy moves and he slams his hips into Cas on the next thrust.

Cas screams out in absolute pleasure, a feeling that, at the moment, is exceeding over every other emotion inside of Dean, himself.

Dean continues his swift rhythm, and wraps his hand around Cas' erection, but Cas swats him away and licks his lips predatorily.

Cas grabs his untended member in his own hand and jerks himself off slowly, watching Dean the entire time, and fuck it all if that doesn't turn Dean all the way up.

Dean slams in again and hits Cas' prostate, smirking at Cas when he croons at the sensation. So Dean continues in his pattern and hits Cas in that same spot every single time and Cas' hand falls away as he clamps up around Dean and closes his eyes.

Cas' neck arches first, his head hanging back against the pillow and his mouth hanging open in a silent scream, then his back arches and his hands clutch the sheets so hard that his knuckles turn white, as he comes, untouched by himself or Dean.

Watching Cas fall apart beneath him makes Dean shiver and he slams even harder into Cas as Cas's muscles tighten around Dean's cock.

"Fuck, Cas!" Dean yells as he thrusts violently into Cas.

Suddenly, the warm, tingling sensation bubbling up in his lower belly is undeniable and he doesn't resist as he comes inside Cas, screaming, "FUCK YES, CAS!"

Dean collapses onto Castiel's chest, heaving against him and breathing into his skin.

They lie in silence for just a moment, a pile of tangled limbs and brushing fingers and grazing teeth and content kisses, before Dean pulls out and falls farther into Cas.

He sighs contently and plants a kiss in the middle of Cas' chest, right between his muscular pectorals, digging his arms under Cas' back and wrapping them around Cas' beautifully curved waist.

Dean's head rests peacefully atop Cas's chest and an audacious smirk creeps into his lips. Castiel must have felt it, though, because he chuckles softly.

"What are you smiling about," Cas asks, a serendipitously enthralled smile plastered on his own face as Dean peeks up at him.

"Nah, it's...it's nothin', Cas, don't worry," Dean replies lazily.

Cas gives him a playful warning look and raises his eyebrow, daring Dean to continue to withhold.

Dean sighs and shakes his head.

Why does he let Cas get to him like this?

"It's just..." Dean pause, chuckling defensively, and buries his face in Cas' chest for the longest second before he looks back up and continues in a pensive, gentle lull. "I just think it's time for me to accept the fact that I am so...inexorably and passionately in love with you."

Cas just stares at him, his brows furrowed. Then he laughs - _laughs_  - a joyous, full-hearted, affectionate laugh that fills Dean's soul with warmth and love and want.

They smile at each other and Cas pulls Dean up, kisses him, and hangs his hand back, resting it back against his arms and closing his eyes.

"I love you too, Dean," Cas breathes after he's settled back into the bed.

"Hmmm..." Dean responds, rolling the words around in his mind. "Say it again."

"I love you, Dean."

"Again."

Cas laughs, a grin that travels all the way to his red tipped ears and crinkled forehead, but says it, yet again, anyway.

He reaches a hand up and caresses Dean's cheek, tilting his own head, and gazing down at Dean lovingly.

"I love you, Dean. Past the moon, through Jupiter, around the Galaxy, and back. I love you like the sun loves the planets, like a dog loves her puppies, like a hippie loves the earth. I love you so much, it's nearly indescribable. But I love you, despite the very depressing lack of words," Cas speaks placidly, a softness to his gravelly voice.

Dean's lips part and his brows move slowly upward as he stares at Cas.

Then he smiles. A small smile, one that holds love and trust and content.

And he knows, then and there, he's wrapped in the arms of exactly who he's supposed to be with.


	36. Carrot Throwing and Soul Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irl apocalypse?

"Oh my god, he's in a play?!" Sam asks incredulously.

He sits across from Gabe at a lunch table with Charlie to Sam's right and Mike and Ruby to his left, who are trying to be very discreet about the fact that they are holding hands. Gabe, of course, suspected they had a 'thing' since the moment he met the girls. And especially when Ruby had crowded Sam, that first day on the 'house tour' Gabe had given Sam, Mike had looked away and his face had been burning pink. 

Jealousy. Just like Gabe had when he and Sam had been at the mall one day and a man, obviously only slightly older than Gabe and Sam, had been eyeing Sam from across one of the stores and Gabe had grabbed Sam's hand and lead him out of the store, Sam completely without knowledge that he's been being hit on.

At least all of them seem to have found the right person.

To Gabe's right sits a blonde girl, who, from the pictures he's seen, looks uncannily like Sam's mother. Curly blonde hair; delicate features; a gentle, caring smile; a soft gaze; and an elegant jawline. Beautiful. 

Gabe's introduced her as Jess and she doesn't seem to take much interest in Sam other than to ask him a question about Calculus or Spanish or maybe just how Sam's day is going. Which, admittedly, pleases Gabe.

To Gabriel's left sits Dorothy, Charlie's best friend and ex-girlfriend. They peek over at Sam and Gabe every few minutes and giggle. Gabe's sure that the two girls think Sam and Gabe are cute, considering their slightly annoying nickname they've come up with for Sam and Gabriel; 'Sabriel', they've started saying.

It's not a huge deal, the nickname, it's just kind of irking to hear it.

"No shit," Gabe answers. "School play, specifically." Gabe sits back in his chair, hanging his arm over the top of the backrest and smirking before he adds snarkily, "I get to watch him peel off fake lashes and wipe off blush. It's amuses me and annoys him...which amuses me further."

Sam chuckles lightheartedly. He seems so happy that his schedule allows him to have so many classes with Gabe. They sit next to eachother in all of them and don't pay attention at all. Gabe also has chamber choir with Dean which is great because this way, Gabe and Dean have a way to communicate with eachother about Cas, who has two classes with Sam.

Gabe's learned, in the past few months, that Sam and Cas actually get along exceptionally well. Because of their similar situations.

And Dean and Cas are just as fortunate; they have lunch together and almost all of their classes - Cas is in advanced...well... everything - but Gabe's jealous only because he and Cas share many of the same friends. And while Gabe has most of them in his lunch, he wishes he had all of them. 

Dean gets to sit with Kevin, Jo, Balthazar, Hannah, Samandriel, and Gadreel.

 _Such weird names here_ , Gabe realises they must be for Sam, and he picks at his food, which is never appetising. One thing Gabe's not all that jealous of is Meg...he's sure she annoys the hell out of Dean.

Come to think of it, maybe she doesn't. They have similar attitudes and the same cocky sarcasm.

"Hey, guys, look at this...news story," Charlie furrows her brows as she looks down at her phone and hands it to Sam. 

Gabe watches Sam start to read through it, his eyes widening. 

' _Fourty-two brush fires plague the entire eastern U.S., only thirty-seven of which are under control. Emergency evacuations have been called on for thousands of cities across the eastern coast in such states as New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Mortality rates are in the ten-thousands. In other news, twelve tornadoes touched down simultaneously in Kansas and Oklhoma, and three different hurricanes threaten to strike the eastern, western, and southern coasts of the U.S., and threaten to destroy coastal cities in Oregon, California, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. The reason for this spontaneous outbreak of natural disasters has yet to be explained. Speculations include scenarios from things as outrageous as a Biblical Apocolypse, to things as logical as a change in the atmosphere, solar winds, or depolarisation. But whether religious or scientific, global catastrophe seems inevitable.'_

Speechless...is the only word to describe Sam right now. Gabe, too, who'd sprung up from his seat and walked around the table to look over Sam's shoulder. And now, Gabe stands close to Sam, his chest pressed tightly against Sam's back and his arms wrapped loosely around Sam's waist and his head hung over Sam's shoulder, dropped jaw resting on Sam's collarbone and gaping mouth millimetres from Sam's cheek.

"Holy f..." Gabe starts and trails off. But after another long moment of utter silence, he attempts to speak again, so soft, it must be almost imperceptible in the noisy cafeteria, even to Sam, whose ear is right next to Gabe's mouth. "Twelve tornadoes, Sam...twelve."

"What weird news," Sam pulls in his eyebrows and gives the phone his absolute best, five star mock puppy eye look, tilting his head. Then he shrugs, and adds something only Dean would say to a story like this, something snarky and dismissive. "At least the water from hurricanes will put out the fires."

He turns, a smirk on his face, toward Gabe and Gabe snorts at Sam's attempt to fill his brother's shoes, his laughter shaking both their bodies.

"How morbid...of you...Sammoose," Gabe retorts, mock scolding in his voice, and kisses Sam's cheek.

"Hey, uh...when is this play that Mike's in?" Sam asks, a vigilant smirk that appears both on his mouth and in his eyes, disrupting his otherwise soft features.

Gabe sits back down in his chair slowly and gives Sam what must be an incredulous look.

"We--you're not serious, right? I mean..." Gabe replies.

Sam waggles his eyebrows and smiles, obviously trying to mock the way Gabe would act in this situation.

"Wow," Gabriel whistles and shakes his head. He catches his lower lip between his teeth and looks down before adding, "Fine. You know what? I..." He leans forward and waves a finger at Sam, purposefully booping his nose, before continuing. "I'll take you to the play. BUT! Only because I want to laugh maniacally at my brother's gay-ness."

Michael squints at Gabe and holds up his hand in a select finger salute, but Gabe just smirks and twitches his brows upward when Sam stifles a laugh.

"Gabe," Sam retorts, his brows pulled in and a small smile playing his lips. "You're not exactly straight, yourself, dude."

"Eh, shut up."

"You love me," Sam sneers playfully and tries to hide his smile by biting his lip.

"Eh heh heh heh," Gabe stabs a carrot with his fork, looking down and to his left before peeping up at Sam through thick lashes. "I really do. But that's our secret."

"Half the school...knows about us, Gabe," Sam laughs and Gabe throws a carrot - lovingly - at him. 

"God, would you two shut up? And if you're gonna have angry make up sex, go do it in a bathroom somewhere and not on the lunch table," Ruby interupts, flapping her hand in the direction of the nearest bathroom.

"Oh, honey, I could say the same for you two," Gabe leans forward, his elbows together on the table and his chin resting in the palms of his hands as he raises his eyebrows at Ruby and then wiggles a finger at Mike. 

Ruby squints at him and draws her brows downward and Mike just blushes and looks away, ever the conservative man, Gabe knows. 

"Aw, nuh-uh, don't pretend, Ruby-Doo. I have ears, I can hear you two at night," Gabe wiggles his brows and winks, then leans back in his chair and crosses a leg contently over the other. "Just keep in mind next time you two 'get busy'..." Gabe smirks and continues. "That my room is diagonal of Mike's."

Sam laughs, high-pitched and amused, and what ensues Gabe's taunting only seems to crack him up further.

Mike's wide eyes flicker shut for just a second before he stands, grabs Ruby by the wrist, and walks away quickly, Ruby, who is flipping all of them off, in tow.

"Wow," Sam nods and laughs once more, watching them leave, before glancing over at Gabe, whose sated smirk make must be evident. "Your brother really hates talking about anything that has to do with sex."

"He actually doesn't talk much at all, but, let me tell ya, Samsquatch. Beneath that quiet, poignant exterior lies a sarcastic but caring...and probably just a little bit gay... warrior," Gabe chuckles but looks down and his smile fades. "But, actually...he's been brave, Sam." He looks back up, quiet resolve in his gentle voice and in his molten gold gaze. "He's actually really loving and understanding. He's got...a lot of emotions and he's strong as all fuck. And...he was always there for us. Even Lucy. Ya know? I mean...he grew up too fast. Younger brothers aren't supposed to console older brothers, they're supposed to be annoying assholes who play pranks and break stuff and get into trouble..." He looks back down, pensive gaze calming Sam. "Not supposed to be everyone's rock. Everyone's shoulder to cry on." Sam offers a sad smile and takes Gabe's hand, such a simple action for Sam, Gabe knows, but, to him, a comforting and warm and loving and powerful motion.

"But, hey...what are brothers for, right?" Gabe amends and reverts easily back to his snarky self.

The rest of the lunch period is full of Dorothy stealing fries from Charlie's tray and Charlie swatting at Dorothy's sneaking fingers and Gabe and Sam holding hands across the table and Jess making annoyed comments about the obnoxious amount of Spanish homework she's been assigned.

And Gabe feels genuinely content _in public_  for the first time in years.


	37. How To Please Your Gay Boyfriend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh hey more Sabriel sex. 
> 
>  
> 
> Well...kind of.

Sam drags a pencil lazily over the sketch book and laughs at his shaky line compared to Gabe's easy, smooth one. They'd been sitting in Gabe's room, watching 'The Notebook' for the billionth time - not paying attention, of course, to the movie, but rather, to eachother, speaking in slow whispers and lazy kisses and gallant 'I love you's' and soft gazes - when Gabe decided it'd be all the fun in the world for them to draw each other. 

Sam refused at first but Gabe's begging has always gotten to him.

"Wow, you're ugly," Gabe teases and shadows Sam's nose.

"Shut up, asshole," Sam retorts, poking Gabe in the side. 

Gabe leans over to kiss Sam on the cheek and Sam turns at exactly the right time, catching Gabe's lips in a sweet kiss. 

"Don't kiss me, loser, I'm mad at you," Sam whispers when Gabe pulls away. 

"If I recall, you just kissed me, my dear Sammitch," Gabe retorts, his eyebrows raised.

"You said I'm ugly."

"Never said you weren't pretty."

"1, Gabe, ugly is the opposite of pretty, and, 2, shut up."

"Well as long as you're mad at me," Gabe scoots over in his beanbag chair and nudges Sam's shoulder with his own before continuing, his voice low. "How would you feel about angry sex?"

Sam laughs, thinking he's joking, but sees the expression on Gabe's face and raises his eyebrows.

"Gabe, everyone is home, and angry sex is loud and obnoxious. Not to mention, I'm not _actually_  mad at you."

"But Saaaaammmmm," Gabe whines and nips at Sam's earlobe, then adds in a dark, predatory husk. "I like you when you're dominant."

"You know, it was actually a huge surprise when I figured out you're like bottom," Sam tries - and epically fails - to change the subject, but Gabe just smirks and winks.

"Come on," Gabe pouts, sets down his pencil, pushes up off his beanbag, and settles atop Sam, his legs straddling either side of Sam's thighs.

"Gabe, shut up," Sam pleads and squirms beneath Gabe.

"Please? For me?" Gabe breathes against Sam's ear and he moans teasingly, giving the smallest snap of his hips.

Sam wants to. Badly.

He stares, with a straight face, at his boyfriend for what seems like hours. He caresses Gabriel's cheek, skimming his thumb over the blonde boy's cheekbone, and pushes his hand back and through Gabe's gold hair. His hand snakes around to cup Gabe's neck and he pulls the shorter boy in.

The kiss is gentle at first, testing the waters as if it's the first time again, hands on cheeks and necks, lips parted but not open, tongues remaining in their own mouths, small smiles and pauses, fingers brushing skin and pulling back hair.

Sam decides to keep it this way for a while, all light and sweet and soulful. 

Then he turns dark; shoves the easel out of the way. He pushes it so hard, it rams into the easel next to it, pencil and pad of paper flinging across the room from the inertia. At the same time, he stands and takes Gabe up with him, who seems to have already adjusted to the change in Sam's demeanour, as if he knew it was coming, and he walks forward, Gabe still attached, to the bed.

Gabe walks backward and when the bed hits the backs of his knees, he bends back and Sam goes with him. They collapse into eachother atop the bed, Sam laughing softly but predatorily, and continue the kiss. 

Sam is dominant and, therefore, rough, and he used to feel like he might hurt Gabe but...Gabe's probably taken worse. 

So Sam doesn't hold back.

He uses the sheets to tie Gabe's hands above his head and hooks his fingers beneath the hem of Gabe's shirt.

Gabe's eyes widen and he shakes his head vigorously.

"Sam, no, this is one of my favourite shirts!" Gabe whines pleadingly.

Sam just smiles, a soulless, careless, open mouthed smile, a predatory glare in his eyes, one that implies that he wants to devour Gabe, he wants Gabe and everything Gabe can give him, and he's going to take it - rip it - away if he has to.

And Gabe. Fucking. Loves. It.

Sam never abuses his remarkable strength but he does now as he tears Gabe's shirt right up the middle and over each seam. He balls up all the peices but one and throws them over his shoulder, not giving a fuck where they land.

He uses the small piece of fabric he's saved to ball up and shove in Gabe's mouth. Gabe is breathing heavily, chest heaving into Sam's crotch, who's straddled Gabe's waist. 

"I told you..." Sam leans in bites down on Gabe's earlobe before pressing his lips to Gabe's ear and continuing, "to shut. _Up_."

Gabe exhales harshly, arching his chest up into Sam's. Sam grins and nips at the flushed skin behind Gabe's ear, brushes his lips over the burning flesh covering Gabe's blushing neck.

He makes his way in toward the centre of Gabe's neck and plants a rough, open mouthed kiss over Gabe's Adam's apple. He trails his lips downward over Gabe's chest and attaches his mouth to a nipple. 

Gabe's muscles tense as he clutches at the sheets tied to his wrists and bites down on the fabric in his mouth, said fabric stifling an obviously otherwise loud moan.

"God, Gabe, you taste amazing," Sam's voice mumbles against Gabe's skin and even Sam can feel how it vibrates through Gabe, both in the way Gabe's muscles tremble beneath Sam and in the way Gabe shivers and continues to moan loudly.

Sam's lips make their way downward and when they reach the waistline of Gabe's jeans he falters and stops.

For the longest time, the only thing filling the silent air is heaving breaths and Gabe's tiny whimpers, Sam's own breaths tickling Gabe's skin. 

Then, Sam's voice emanates, small and tired, from just below Gabe's abs. 

"Gabe, you know I want to, but my logic remains..." He hesitates, then creeps back upward, all swinging hips and calm, sated hazel gaze, to level his face with Gabe's. "I do know...something else you could..." He trails off as he unties the sheets, kissing each of Gabe's fingers in the process, then continues, "...do for me, though." 

Sam smiles and grazes his teeth over Gabe's jaw, removing the balled up fabric in Gabe's mouth. His mouth remains hanging open in a silent moan, his head hanging back and his eyes just now opening to peek down at Sam.

Sam's smile has turned mischievous and he brushes some pieces of hair out Gabe's eyes.

"Anything, Sam," Gabe breathes; shoves his fingers through Sam's hair, locking them around a few chunks of the long brown mane. "Anything."

Sam kisses Gabe once on the lips then sits back on his heels, watching Gabe, tilting his head, and says, "Touch yourself for me."

Gabe's eyebrows flick upward only for a second before he nods and Sam stands, sauntering over to his beanbag chair and falling into it.

Sam watches greedily as Gabe undoes his jeans, shoving both them and his boxer briefs down toward his knees. His member pops out easily and slaps up against his stomach. He drags his tongue up the centre of his hand then runs his fingers up the shaft of his cock and lets out a soft breath.

Gabe rubs up and down, rolling his hips and bucking his cock up into his hand involuntarily. His breathing becomes laboured and hitches in his throat every few seconds. 

Sam gazes in satisfaction when Gabe takes the base of his cock in his hand and shudders as he slides upward. 

"Fuck. Sam," Gabe breathes and Sam's attention is completely arrested by Gabe's hand moving over his own hard cock, bringing himself closer to orgasm and letting Sam watch. 

"That's right, Gabe, keep goin'," Sam says and he desperately wants to free his own neglected appendage from its denim confines.

Sam can tell when Gabe's on the verge of coming when he stops bucking up into his hand and simply arches his back at the sharpest angle Sam's ever seen Gabe bend. His lips hang open, his head hangs back, and his eyelids hang closed, and his toes curl into the sheets. 

Sam pushes out of the chair, glides over, hips swaying, and stops next to the bed. He stands over Gabe and gazes down at him with dark, hungry eyes for a good, long second, then crouches and pushes his lips in so they're a millimetre from Gabe's ear.

"Come for me, Gabriel," Sam requests greedily and one side of his lip twitches upward in an almost smile when Gabe moans, just barely stifling it.

Sam sits back on his haunches and licks his lips slowly, a smirk desperate to invade his predatory glare.

Sam stares, eyes acquisitive, at the most beautiful orgasm Sam's ever seen Gabe have. Gabe's moan fills the room, Sam's name rocketing through his gaping lips, and Sam's own gasp penetrates the still air surrounding him as he comes in his _fucking pants_ , completely untouched.

"Holy shit, Gabe, you're amazing," Sam laughs and sits back up to level his face with Gabe's, who's still coming down. Sam reaches up, places his hand on Gabriel's forehead, pulls his hand back, raking the sweaty hair off Gabe's skin, and leans in to plant a kiss on Gabe's cheek. Then he repeats, more softly, "You're amazing."

Gabe takes a few more long moments, heavy inhaling and exhaling filling the silent room. Then he smirks and cracks his eyes open, glancing over at Sam.

"I know," Gabe replies, satisfied smile matching Sam's. 

Sam leans back in to kiss Gabe on the lips but Gabe holds up his hand and then his middle finger between their faces.

Sam just chuckles and mutters happily, "I love you, too, Gabe."


	38. An Ardent Resolve Does Not Invoke Relief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprise??

"I don't know what to say..." Cas replies quietly. He rakes his fingers through his hair in fervent chagrin and partial dejection then drops his arm back to his side and looks down at his feet, incredulity ever-present in his cobalt blue eyes.

His father. Again.

Why won't Chuck just leave him alone?

"You can say you forgive me," Chuck's voice is slightly staticky - probably because of his location, which is completely unknown by the rest of the Shurley family. And that doesn't exactly bother Cas.

"I don't..." Cas begins, his voice wavering. He will _not_  cry in front of his father. Ever. He tries again, a new ardent resolve in his voice. "I don't know if I can do that, Chuck."

"You won't even call me da--" 

"You stopped...being my dad when you disowned me. When you invalidated my _entire existance_...simply because you are an obnoxiously homophobic twat," Cas interupts, and at this point he couldn't care less what the consequences to this action may be. He _wants_  his father to be angry.

"Watch your tone--"

"You're disgusting--"

" _You're_  disgusting, Castiel. You are a disgrace to this family, and to humankind and you are an atrocious waste of space and oxygen, you wretched abomination," Chuck hisses into the phone in his 'fatherly' warning tone.

"--and you do not have the right to speak to me this way--"

"You shut your mouth, Ca--" Chuck tries again but Castiel just continues to talk over him.

"--and you most certainly are _not_...my father," Cas finishes, spitting the words out like they're venom on steroids. "And you never will be."

Cas realises he's standing now, clenching his fists and speaking through gritted teeth, his breathing laboured.

There's a long moment of silence in which Cas begins to think that his father has hung up but then Chuck speaks, his voice surprisingly level.

"We will not have this conversation, Castiel," Chuck whispers, a dangerous acidic tone in the words.

"We will not have a conversation ever again, you cowering, diffident shit," Castiel counters before stabbing the end call button. He heaves a few more breaths then chucks the phone at the wall. It makes a terrible crackling sound when it hits the wall, then again when it hits the floor. 

Cas looks around frantically before deciding, instead of getting drunk off his sorry ass like he usually wouod, to take a shower and he strips his clothing in harsh pulls and pushes.

He waddles toward the bathroom as he throws his clothing off, grunting when his shoulder accidentally slams into the doorframe.

He turns on the shower and steps into the pounding water, not waiting for it to warm up.

Cas leans back against the wall before sliding down the already slick surface and landing on his bum. He hunches over and hangs his head defeatedly, raising his arms and squeezing his temples under the heels of his hands. He rocks back and forth under the thick spray of the shower and holds his face in his palms, shaking his head side to side, trying to rid his warring mind of the monsters that haunt it.

His sob rips through his body and the shower and probably through his entire room, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

 _No no no no no, this can not be happening again_ , his mind plays out the familiar mantra.

All of the emotions he's been suppressing, hiding, distracting himself from in the past few months come flooding back in a crashing wave of hurt and pain and dejection and despondency and dysphoria exhaustion and tears and wanting to die and shame and embarrassment and self-doubt and self-loathe and self esteem low enough to trip over and the absolute, irrevocable, inexplicable _ache_  of being so sad all the time and trying so hard to hide it.

He looks up abruptly, a new gallant resolve in his eyes.

He cuts the water off, concluding his short shower, and steps out into the cool air of the bathroom. 

Time to end this.


	39. I Think Something's Wrong With Cas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sadism is not becoming. Don't try it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‼️WARNING: CHAPTER CONTENT POSSIBLY TRIGGERING. CONTINUE AG YOUR OWN RISK.‼️
> 
> Just note that I've written this entire story for the sake of making people aware that this is, a lot of the time, how life is for people who struggle with depression and especially self harm.

Cas' birthday is something Dean is definitely looking forward to. He already knows what he's giving the boy. He's been there for Cas these past two and a half months and, goddamnit all if Cas hasn't been there for Dean too. So, damn right, Dean wants to give all of himself to Cas. He wants to give Cas everything he has; his smile, his gaze, his love, his joy, his hope, his fear, his anger, his happiness, his freedom, his hands, his soul, and his heart. And won't Cas just love the other things Dean has planned. He hopes. Heh heh.

Dean feels Gabe's hand on his shoulder and turns to find a wide grin on the other man's face. 

"Walk with me," Gabe says and Dean follows him up the stairs. "So there's this amusement park..."

"Oh, God. This again?" Dean replies, raking his fingers through his hair. "Dude, I think Cas will be just fine, like....going to the...park...or something."

"Aaawwwwh, come on, kiddo. Dontcha think the poor guy deserves something special?"

"Of course but, Gabe, you should know more than anyone that what he classifies as special is very different from what you classify as special. To him, special is just...cuddling in a field of flowers and talking for hours on end."

"And staring into your - hooooooh - green eyes," Gabe widens his own eyes and bounces his eyebrows, wiggling his fingers at Dean.

"Shut up," Dean answers, rolling his - aforementioned - green eyes.

"Just...let's all take him somewhere nice, huh, Deano?" Gabe offers a sad smile - probably knows that Dean understands how 'going somewhere special' will affect Castiel's mood, make him feel better, worth it. And, God knows, that's all Dean wants for his baby, his dark haired angel.

"I don't know, Gabe..." is all Dean says, reluctancy evident in his quiet voice from his spot beside the other man as they round the corner and Gabe opens the door to Cas' room.

Their conversation about what to do for Cas' birthday party is dramatically cut short, though, when the first thing they see is Cas, streaks of thick blood pouring down his arms, falling to his back, onto the floor...fainting from blood loss.

Dean's eyes widen and a sharp intake of breath that ends up catching in Dean's throat is all that it takes to start him up, propel him forward toward his lover. He sprints across the room and catches Castiel's head, hair still damp, in his hands just as it's about to hit the carpeted floor.

Deans eyes are wide and his brows are drawn in and upward in concern as he searches Cas' face, searches his eyes for an answer to his silent, pleading question.

_Why?_

He refuses to let his feeble attempts to make Cas better fall completely. No. Cas is Dean's proof. Dean's responsibility. And his reassurances, albeit fleeting and empty, were so obviously profound to Cas. He can't let that smile fade. Not like this.

He clutches at Cas, holding him, caressing him, turning back to yell at Gabe to call an ambulance only to find that he's already gone to do exactly that, turning back and letting tears stream down his face, letting himself feel weak.

He remembers all the times he felt weak and helpless in front of Cas, the times he spoke words only for Cas' ears and cried tears only for Cas' eyes and hid lies only for Cas' lips to speak for him. And he doesn't push the memories aside, or cower in their wake, he allows them to plummet him into a downward-spiraling chasm of exiled self control. He grits his teeth and rocks forward to hover over Castiel - and God only knows, he mostly does this because he simply doesn't have the energy to sit up straight as his sobs wrack his body - and shakes his head, as if that will make it all go away. 

He insists to himself that it's only a dream, that if he snaps his fingers or pinches himself, he'll wake up. He tries so hard to convince himself but he knows damn well that this isn't some nightmare he can pull out of with the blink of an eye. 

The abrupt sob that rips through the room is all but easy to forget.

"No!" Dean rocks back and forth, clutching at Cas' shirt, at whatever he can, at anything he can hold onto, at any memory he can snatch before it's gone, at any smile or kiss or hug or reassurance or cuddle or touch or soft gaze or finger brush he can reach at because that's all he'll have left if this really isn't just a nightmare. That's all he'll have left, is the memory of this amazing, innocent boy. His resolve rises. "No! No, I will not let you go! You are not...fucking...leaving, Cas!" His voice falters on 'leaving' and what little audacity that remained now crumbles inside Dean, along with his adamant composure. "No..." He stands and slams the lamp against the wall. "YOU FUCKING PROMISED, CAS! YOU ASSHOLE, YOU PROMISED!" Cas whimpers and God help Dean if that wasn't the most deplorably cruel, most heart-breaking and soul-stinging sound in the entire world, so he calms again and sinks to his knees in front of the bleeding boy, his one true love. "You...promised..." His voice shatters, and so does his heart. "Fuck you. You promised."

Dean's sobs explode from his throat and destroy the still air. 

"Dean," Cas's hoarse voice bubbles from his pale, dry lips. His breaths are shallow and heavy. "I love you."

"No. No no no no no! Don't you dare go saying goodbye to me, you asshole! Not yet, not ever!" Dean yells.

"Ambulance is on the way. Three minutes," Sam's voice comes from the door and behind him stands Gabe, grasping Sam's shirt and sobbing into it. Gabe's too scared to come into the room, Dean knows, because if he does - goddamnit, if he takes a single step inside this room - there will be nothing in his memory but this.

The last thing he sees before he falls asleep will be Castiel's dying breaths, his soft features, his lolling head, his sly smile. And the first thing he sees when he wakes will be Castiel's messy room, the pillows and comforter messed around the bed, the dirty clothes spread lazily over the floor, the rock band posters cluttering the dark blue walls. 

And fuck it all if Dean won't see that himself. He fucking knows damn well that the only thing he'll be able to see when he closes his eyes will be Cas' last smile, his last movement, his last kiss. He won't be able to see anything but Cas' soul, the absolute darkest parts of him, the parts that he loved most and the absolute purest parts of him, the parts that he also loved most. And God knows, he can't live without Cas. He can't. He fucking can't! 

And fuck it all if anyone thinks Dean will let that smile fade, those beautiful fucking blue eyes. And fuck it all if anyone thinks Dean will let the feeling of Cas' skin on his own go away, the tingling sensation Dean gets when Cas kisses him - and God knows he gives the best kisses.

And fuck it all if anyone thinks Dean will let go of any of this. 

No. No his life was too short. Cas CANNOT FUCKING DIE he can't because...because then what's left for Dean? And Castiel's life, it was fleeting and he simply cannot die yet. It's not his time. He's too _young_ , too fucking young.

Dean sobs, sobs so hard he thinks he might choke on his own fears, his own sadness.

And he tries - oh god does he try - he tries to lift that dark haired, blue eyed boy with the beauitful soul and the beautiful voice and the beauitful hands that could do anything, mend anything, break and hurt and fix and free and love and help anything and anyone. To lift the boy who gave Dean everything. To lift the boy who lifted Dean in his darkest times. And, God fucking knows...he tried to lift Cas. But he can't. If only he weren't so fucking weak.

He tries again, and a third time. But everytime he tries, he crumbles under the weight of himself. Under the weight of years of pent up rage and urgency and want and need and jealousy and hate. Years of love and freedom and joy and happiness and hugs and kisses. Years of heart break and sad smiles and lost opportunities and wasted tears and easy smirks. And, God fucking forbid, under the past few months. Under the weight of letting Cas fall and then picking him up again; of helping him walk when he was too weak to even get out of bed; of helping him speak when he wanted to sleep and never wake; of helping him stand when he couldn't find the energy to do so on his own; of helping him smile when it was the last goddamn thing he wanted to do; of helping him fucking eat when he refused food and water for two entire days one time; of crying with him when even Dean couldn't make him better; of fearing exactly this; of reassuring him that Dean would never ever leave; of staring him in the eyes for hours on end and falling asleep in his arms and feeling guilty as all fuck when Dean was too busy with other things to help and pushing him away one time when Dean was too sad to think straight or even take a fucking hug and of getting to know Cas. Getting to know his soul and his likes and his dislikes and his passions and his weaknesses and his strengths. And under the weight of knowing Dean was the reason, Dean was the one who pushed Cas to do his best and to try his hardest and never give up and to always fucking remember - 'don't you ever forget, Cas, don't you dare forget' - that he was strong and capable and so much fucking more than his illnesses, than his weaknesses, than his alcohol problem and his recent run in with self harm and his suicide attempt and his issues and his flaws, and, God, when Dean warned him to never again hide the deepest, darkest corners of one of the purest souls Dean's ever witnessed and Cas just nodded and sniffed and snuggled up under Dean's chin.

And fuck eve-

Paramedics cut off Dean's speeding train of thought as they rush in and decide they don't have time to get Cas to the hospital so they instead clear the floor and sterilise the wound and stitch it up right then and there in front of Dean. 

But everything moves in slow motion. Everything comes to a near stop as Dean watches the scene in front of him unfold. His heart falters and he just stares blankly at everything, never comprehending a word any of the people in that room are saying or doing.

He feels numb. He feels emotionless. He feels like Cas is already dead and he's lost the other half of him. The half that fucking mattered in this shitty world. People run toward Cas, rushing quickly in and out of the room but time passes so slowly that it seems like centuries before Sam reaches him and pulls him up by the armpits and leads him out of the room.

Dean's tears are gone. A blank, uncomprehending stare replaces them, stains streaking his cheeks the only evidence that tears were ever there in the first place. 

Dean doesn't understand anything right now. Why does he exist if this is all that happens to him? What's the point? Why be alive if everything he loves is ruthlessly ripped from his clutches? What's the point if all the bad things happen to all the good guys?

All Dean knows is that, right now, his soul is being razed, his heart is being burned, his mind is being sliced to pieces, his blood is being drained from his body, every fibre of his person his being mercilessly erased from existence with nothing to spare.

"I love you, Dean," Castiel's husky voice pierces Dean's thoughts and shatters his entire world over again. "Dean..."

The beauitful voice breathing through Cas' lips turns into Gabe's concerned one. 

"Dean!" Gabe shouts and waves a hand in front of his eyes.

Dean just barely registers a form moving up to stand beside Gabe's own blurry body, and he hears Sam's voice emanating from the shadow.

"You sure, Gabe? I don't...I'm scared...what if this scars him..." Sam's voice worries.

Fuck. This again. The only thing able to pull Dean out of a daze like this is Sam's voice - or Cas's. He simply can't stand to hear the concern, the utter anxiety in his little baby brother's voice, or in Cas's.

He is slingshotted back to reality and as he whips through the air between deep thought and conciousness, he breathes out and his eyes unblur. 

"Sammy?" Dean sighs and his brother's arms dart outward to fold Dean into a tight hug. Dean can feel Sam's jaw set and he knows his brother must be gritting his teeth again.

"Oh, God, Dean," Sam's voice trembles on it's way out. "Oh, God, I thought I lost you..."

"Nah, Sammy..." Dean whispers gently and pauses, contemplating everything, wanting terribly to ask Sam if Cas is okay, being that he's unable to see him anymore. He decides, instead, on continuing with a more easy train of thought. "No, I would never let you lose me, Sammy. Remember? You need me. You'd be lost without me. Probably off...in crazy town. Stuck in some asylum, thinkin' you're hunting monsters or something." 

Dean tries so hard to joke, to brush the serious situation off with not-so-serious conversation. He really does but...Sam can see right through it, he knows. 

"Shut up, Dean," is all Sam says in response. 

After that there's no words, just Sam holding Dean, the way Dean used to with Sam. The only place where Dean feels safe right now.


	40. The Older Brother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Up until this point, I feel like the main characters haven't interacted with Lucifer and Michael very much so I guess...idek just let it happen.

That sniveling asshat he used to consider his father deserves to die but Gabe isn't capable of murder. 

Or maybe he is.

He doesn't know - he's never tried. 

He screws his eyes shut and allows his head to fall against Sam's broad shoulder, trying not to let a sob escape his throat while he's in a public area. 

"Sam?" Gabe whispers, opening his eyes and nuzzling his face into Sam's shoulder.

Sam hesitates, inhaling a trembling breath, before he tries to answer. "Yes, baby?"

It comes out strained and sad and heartbreaking and Gabe can't help but press a kiss to the skin beneath Sam's ear where he's buried his nose. 

"Why do bad things happen to innocent people?" 

"I...I don't know, Gabe...I don't know."

Gabe smiles and tries to joke, "Your honesty is refreshing."

"Shut up, Gabe," Sam's lips twitch up for a second before he settles his head against Gabe's. 

Dean sits to Sam's right, tapping his foot, his breathing quick and those green eyes that Cas loves so much glued to something in the distance. Probably something intangible, like the last good memory the poor guy has of Cas.

Gabe switches his eyes from Dean to Lucifer who paces in front of the other three men, a grim look on his face with his lips pressed into a thin line and his brows drawn down over his deep set eyes which search the floor for something indiscernible. 

The automatic doors slide open and Michael comes sprinting in, his breaths heavy and his forehead shining with sweat.

"Where...is he," Michael heaves, folding in on himself and speaking between breaths.

"Wait, did you just... _run_  all the way here?" Gabe asks incredulously.

"Gabriel, shut up. He's in room 332, Michael...still getting stitched up..." Lucifer replies to Mike. He pleads with Mike for something Mike can't give him, his eyes watering and his brows pulled in and up. Puppy eyes. 

Not as pretty or heartbreaking as Sam's though.

Ha.

A nurse in minty, sea-foam green scrubs, with curly black hair, eyes that are a darker, more spine-tinglingly beautiful hue of her clothing, and stern but somehow elegant features that would otherwise imply she probably belongs to a motorcyclist group.

"The stitches are all in but..." She trails off her mouth trying to coagulate a legible sentence but all that comes out is a choked noise as she looks down. Gabriel becomes anxious at this. "He's barely awake. His breathing's evened out and the bleeding has subsided. Uh...wel--w..." She pauses again. She takes a deep breath before adding. "It's not the worst case we've seen but...uh, look, it's just...better to let you see him. Walk with me." 

The nurse gestures for the five boy's to follow her down a series of hallways - Gabe loses count, he's so out of it. He does notice, though, that the nurse's name tag reads Pamela and Gabe almost laughs at the old-fashioned name. 

They reach the door for room 332 and the nurse opens it, stepping aside to allow the boys in.

Sam's vice-like grip on Gabe's arms tightens and the moose turns away, hunching over to bury his wincing face in Gabe's neck.

Gabe peeks up and over Sam's broad shoulder and gauges Dean's reaction, for curiousity's sake, as the man stands silently beside the hospital bed.

Gabe watches Dean's lips trembling, his green eyes watering. His hands shake - uncontrollably, it seems - as he raises one, reaching toward Cas. But before his fingers can even graze Cas' skin, a sob falls violently from his mouth, and he retracts the hand he reached out with to slam it over his mouth. Trying so hard to suppress his weaknesses, always.

He collapses into himself, one arm clutching his stomach, head hanging limply from his neck, as he crouches down and sits back on his heels. His sobs are far too violent, though, so he releases his abdomen and then - more reluctantly - his mouth, and he grasps the edge of the hospital bed. His head hangs and his lips tremble and his entire body shakes vigorously, matching his head, which moves sideways, back and forth, as he struggles, chest heaving, to gasp in oxygen.

Gabe can only imagine the shit going through Dean's mind right now. He's probably taking it harder on himself than any of them, and fuck it all if that makes any more sense than a dolphin sprouting legs and walking amongst humans.

Gabe purses his lips and let's his eyelids flutter closed over his own teary gold irises.

Sam squeezes him tighter, planting a kiss in the hollow of Gabe's collarbone and nuzzling his nose into Gabe's shoulder, and Gabe feels Sam trying really hard to suppress a sob.

Gabe's not crying though...maybe he can't cry, right now. Maybe he's in shock. Or - and the much likelier possibility - he's too drained, his energy gone. As if he's an angel with fading grace and he doesn't understand how to deal with his new life.

Gabe crosses the room from the open door to the bed and stands on wavering knees on the side opposite Dean. He strokes Cas' cheek and pushes sweaty hair out of his baby brother's eyes. 

"You're the strongest person I know, Castiel," Gabe whispers, his fingers lingering on Cas' forehead. "Don't ruin that now, kiddo."

Gabe doesn't know - or...really... _care_  - whether it was his sappy, craptastic sarcasm that made Cas open his eyes, but he did, and that's what matters. 

Cas' eyes aren't alert enough and he's obviously struggling to keep his eyelids open, but the little shit smiles anyway, a smirking, snarky, 'I-told-you-so' smile that does nothing more than break Gabe's heart.

Cas' breaths aren't exactly full - stable, yes, as the nurse, Pamela, had said. But, despite the shallow breathing, Cas manages to switch his bloodshot blue eyes around the room. He finds Dean, kneeling by the bed, his hands squeezing Cas' arm and nails digging into his flesh - probably what woke Cas up. 

And so, Castiel's gaze is glued to Dean, albeit, Dean's lack of seeing that Cas has awoken.

"I love you, Dean," Cas' gravelly, choked voice whispers in Dean's direction, his throat croaking. Dean's head whips upward, his ridiculously green eyes searching incredulously, finding only Cas' blue ones open and staring back.

Dean's brows draw in and pull upward and his eyes water, a pleading gaze that almost breaks Gabe's heart - almost - before he launches himself at Cas, throwing his arms around Cas' shoulders and burying his face in Cas' neck. 

Cas just raises his eyebrows and smirks, shrugging and shaking his head - a loving motion, Gabe knows, rather than an annoyed one.

Dean takes another moment, then whispers fiercely, "Don't you _ever_ do that again. Ever, Cas." Dean pulls away and digs his fingers into Cas' shoulders, ever-careful, to Gabe's surprise, about not even glancing his fingers over the (significantly smaller) bruise.

Actually...

Gabe peeps over Cas' shoulder and finds, looking into the gap in the open back of the thin-ass hospital gown, that the bruise is gone. Not a trace that it was ever there at all. 

Old habits die hard.

"Never. _Fucking_. Again. Castiel. Never," Dean finishes in the most obnoxiously, irrevocably fervent voice Gabe's ever heard in his entire life.

Gabe's eyebrows shoot up and his lips twitch for the smallest of split seconds into a satisfied smirk. 

Yeah...Dean'll definitely make sure Cas stays on track.


	41. Simply Sabriel

"The debt would be incredibly large, Mr. Shurley. I'm not sure if you want to..." The rest of the conversation about life insurance and paying off debt is lost to Sam, as he simply bores of insurance matters, and he turns his head, his stubbled chin scraping over Gabe's scratchy blonde hair (which remains surprisingly soft and not oily after three days of not even leaving Cas' hospital room).

Gabe uses Sam as a pillow most of the time, resting his head haphazardly across Sam's lap or hanging it against his shoulder or nuzzling it up under Sam's armpit. 

"What do you think will happen to us?" Gabe mumbles into Sam's ribs where his head has been burrowed for the past half hour. The words carry the innocent curiousity of a child and it breaks Sam's heart. It shouldn't. He's younger than Gabe. He should be the one scared shitless, not this beautiful man snuggled up beneath his arm. Not this amazing person who's been nothing but brave and concerned; who's done nothing but help his little brother get better, and who's proven to Sam that in spite of Gabe's snarky outer shell, he can be one of the most caring and affectionate and passionate people Sam has ever known.

Sam breathes out, unsure of how to answer. He wants so badly to tell Gabe that everything will be fine - they'll sell their own house and bring all their rich kid shit with them and come live with Sam and Dean at their house and they'll all get jobs and Dean or Lucifer will be in charge and everything will be all fine and fucking dandy...but he can't bring himself to lie to Gabe like that, even when the man looks so ridiculously small right now.

"Honestly? I don't know, Gabe. And I'm sorry because I wish I knew but I just...don't," his reply is whispered, for Gabe's ears only and he hates that he can't just say what Gabe wants to hear.

"I know, Sam...I just wanted to know if you had the guts to lie to me about it," Gabe jokes and squeezes Sam's waist. Sam peeks down at Gabe's face and there's a smile plastered to it, and Sam can tell it's genuine and he thinks it's amazing that Gabe can smile under these circumstances. But the smile falls slowly and Gabe's thick lashes move downward as he closes his eyelids over his eyes and Sam can tell he's on the verge of tears. "I...I can't lose him, Sam. He's my baby brother, my entire... _existance_...I just..."

Sam runs a hand over Gabe's disheveled blonde hair and sighs. Dean would probably relate more easily to this because he's the big brother, but Sam can still understand how Gabe feels. Sam would do anything to protect Dean, younger brother or not.

"Ssshhhh," Sam hushes Gabe gently instead of offering consolation and cranes his neck to bury his face in Gabe's hair. He plants a kiss to the top of Gabe's head and leaves his lips there. 

Sam can't stand to see someone he loves so much in this state, innocent and cowering and terrified and probably shocked and without the energy to even cry. I mean, seeing Dean like this - defeated and scared and cuddled up to Sam in a fit of dejection - would probably crack Sam's heart in half.

But Dean can take care of himself, and Sam knows a hell of a lot better than to think that Dean wouldn't be able to get better on his own.

Gabe, on the other hand...seeing him like this is like a hammer to Sam's heart, which is currently shattering into a million pieces; pieces that will never be able to be picked up. And Sam knows Gabe is able and, holy shit, is he brave. And Sam knows Gabe is strong as all fuck. But, goddamnit, if Gabe could build himself up again without help from Sam. 

It's not a bad thing, to ask for help or accept it, and it sure as hell isn't an annoyance for Sam - he likes helping Gabe, it's become a hobby. But Sam's heart aches for Gabe (and shoot it all to hell if that's not cliche as fuck).

Suddenly he doesn't want to think about any of it. He just wants to sit here, with Gabe beneath is arm, face burrowed into his ribs, Sam's lips buried in Gabe's hair. 

And Sam just wants to be Gabe's saviour again for a while, his comfort.

His anchor.


	42. Honey, I'm Home!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CAS WAKES UP

"Cas is tough, Dean, he'll pull through!" Cas wakes to Sam's voice yelling at, well, he assumes Dean. "Dean! Calm the fuck down!!"

Cas then hears Dean's now familiar sobbing, and turns his head slowly, not wanting anyone to know he's awake. What he sees, instead of humouring him as he'd hoped, is Dean, kneeling on the floor, being held up only by Sam's hands clamping down on his shoulders, and Dean's head hangs defeatedly as he sobs into his hands, his entire body trembling in the force of his own crying. Sam shakes him once more, Sam's own face twisted in concern and his own eyes pooling with tears, obviously waiting for Dean's response. When the sobbing man gives none, Sam releases Dean's shoulders and allows Dean to collapse into his chest. Sam just holds the shorter man and stares straight ahead, off into the distance, spacing out. 

Cas shifts his eyes upward and sees Gabe staring at him, eyes wide and lips parted in utter surprise. Cas shifts slowly to hold up a finger to his lips, telling Gabe silently to shut up about Cas' mind making an appearance in the waking world, and Gabe squints eyes but stays quiet.

Cas clears his throat and speaks, his voice only a little shaky. 

"I dreamt about...a honey bee, buzzing from flower to flower...and I saw its...path. In dotted lines. And--" Dean's body is suddenly crushing Cas' but he actually couldn't care less because right now - right fucking now - Dean is burying his face in Cas' neck and kissing every open centimetre of skin and everyone and everything else disappears and Cas is transported to a different place entirely and it's just him and Dean and the hospital bed is gone and they're standing together under a spotlight in an otherwise completely black room and Dean is kissing him.

But then Gabe - still annoying as ever - clears his throat and Cas falls back into the hospital bed. 

Dean's face is still buried in Cas' neck but Cas can feel the look on his face - annoyed and slightly angry. Dean grumbles unintelligibly into Cas' skin before pivoting on his heel and whirling around to glare at Gabe.

"He's been sleeping for two days, Gabe. Let me have a moment with my boyfriend?" Cas can't see Dean's face but he can tell just by the tone of his voice that his eyebrows are raised and he's got mock boredom in his eyes, his signature annoyed look.

"Exactly! It's only been two days! Give it a break, Dean-o!"

" _You're_ an asshat!" Dean retorts, putting irked emphasis on the 'you're'.

Gabe glares and does a little head swerve, like he always does when he's trying very hard not to say something snarky for the sake of the people around him.

"God, I wake up and you two are still at eachother's throats," Cas jokes and stifles a smile by slapping his hand over his mouth.

Dean shoots an arm outward and points a finger at Sam, his eyebrows raised and his eyes wide - his 'older brother' look.

"You shut up," he growls.

"I never said anything, Dean," Sam retorts.

"He didn't, Dean. All he did was laugh," Gabe chimes in, whistling and glancing downward to pick at his nails.

"You shut up, too," Dean says to him and when Gabe looks up with his eyebrows raised and his lips still poised to whistle, Dean raises his own eyebrows and gives him a mock-threatening look.

"You all need to shut up," Lucifer's voice comes from the door and he walks in from around the corner, paging through a stack of paperwork. "The bill's gonna be tremendous and I'm not in the mood to deal with you immature, presumptuous twits."

Cas snickers at his brother's insult. Lucy's obviously been hanging around with Crowley at the bar again. 

Lucifer doesn't even raise an eyebrow at the fact that Cas is awake. He simply saunters into the room, the frustration in his eyes only evident to Cas and probably Gabe, who've lived with the older man their entire lives and should know the look.

"I'm serious, Castiel. This is going to be hard," Lucifer sits gingerly on the edge of the bed and lays a hand carefully on Cas' shin and Cas' face falls. "We may have money, and we'll have plenty after this is done, but this is dangerously close to not enough. We do use that money to pay for other things and losing this much will set us back. A lot."

"I'm sorry," Cas replies, his response immediate and familiar. Lucifer shakes his head, though, and pats Cas' leg, probably kind of annoyed.

"Cas, this isn't your fault--" Lucifer tries, his brows pulled in and his lips drawn downward. He's concerned.

But Cas interupts, because he hates that people lie to him this way.

"Ya know, Luc, I'm just gonna cut you off there because lying does not become you. I understand that I'm to blame for this. For everything. So...don't even try."

"Castiel. I'd like you to shut the fuck up for two minutes and let me fucking finish, you arrogant dick," Lucifer responds calmly and raises his eyebrows, and Cas knows that's the look that tells him Lucy is serious. He shuts his mouth and looks down, embarrassed, letting Lucifer finish. "Cas, this isn't your fault, and you know this damn well, deep down, at _least._ I need you to stop. Feeling. Guilty. And..." He holds up a finger and waves it at Cas before continuing, more softly. "And I know that's so much easier said than done, but you need to stop, because. Because this isn't...your fault. I'd like to say that it's Chuck's, but fact is, it's no one's fault and it sure as hell isn't yours."

Cas searches his lap, which used to be empty, but now holds his limp hands. He doesn't know what to say. He wants to say something but he just can't. So he hugs Lucifer. He hugs him the way he hasn't since he was _five_. He hugs lucifer and he sits there, his arms folded tightly around Lucifer's arms.

He can hear Lucifer's nearly inaudible chokes of words, trying to speak but unable to, not because of Cas' arms squeezing his neck, but because Cas hasn't hugged him like this since he was a toddler or at all in a very long time. Cas finally feels Lucifer shift and then his arms around his ribcage.

"Thank you," Cas breathes and squeezes tighter. "Thank you"

"What are brother's for, right?" Lucifer's voice is quiet and still surprised, but he squeezes tighter too, holds on to Cas because he obviously misses moments like this just as much as Cas does.

"Alright, you two, get a room," Gabe mumbles and Cas peeks over Lucy's shoulder in time to see Sam smack Gabe upside the head. Gabe rubs his hand over the spot and looks up at Sam with mock hurt in his eyes and a his lips forming a silent 'ow!' then pouting, and Cas sniggers at their bickering.

Lucifer releases him then, and Cas smiles gratefully at his older brother, his protector and his rock. Lucifer nods and stands, his eyes regarding Cas carefully, then salutes him gallantly, boy-scout style, and marches - yes, _marches_  - out of the room, leaving Cas smiling adoringly, Dean glaring at the back of his sandy blonde head (probably because he got to hug Cas and not Dean), Sam chuckling, and Gabe rolling his eyes.

 _Yeah, Lucy...what are brothers for?_  Cas thinks as Dean reaches for him and tugs him a gentle kiss. _What are brothers for..._


	43. Destiel Fluff? From Me? Nooooooo...

Dean's eyes flutter open and he nudges Cas' ribs with his nose. Cas glances down hazily and shifts his arm slightly outward so Dean can nuzzle deeper into his armpit.

The hospital bed is uncomfortable as fuck - Dean hasn't a clue why Cas has been here for five days already, other than the flimsy explanation the nurses have repeated boredly to him - but Dean doesn't, can't, and won't care right now because he's snuggled up against Cas, his cold toes buried between the electronically heated bed and Cas' blood heated legs. And that's what matters to him in life.

"God, Dean, why are you always so fucking cold?" Cas tries to mumble, and it's legible, but it comes out garbled and Dean just has to chuckle softly at Cas' sleepiness.

"Because opposites attract," Dean replies, smirking into Cas' bare skin where he's tugged the hospital gown out from beneath Cas's back and away from Cas's ribs simply so he could breathe in the scent of walnuts and cherries and the beautiful musk of...just... _Cas_. He can't help it, though. Cas's scent is just so amazing and unique and Dean's never smelled anything like it.

"I do not understand that reference," Cas mutters and his head lolls to the right so he can peek down at Dean.

"Don't understand it my ass," Dean retorts and kisses Cas' ribs. This evokes a very soft, very surprising moan to float from between Cas' lips and Dean raises an eyebrow and does it again. 

He decides to keep it up, trailing the kisses downward over Castiel's ribs, when Cas' breathing becomes heavy and his grip on Dean's t-shirt becomes tight as all fuck.

"Dean, come on," Cas breathes, warning Dean, but not really trying to stop him, which means Cas is obviously enjoying the attention.

Dean continues his trail, shifting the thin blankets and the papery, starched hospital gown and bowing his head to kiss every exposed centimetre of Cas' lovely, sculpted abdomen. He kisses each hipbone and continues down Cas' right leg, coming dangerously close to Cas' cock. He knows he was only millimetres from the appendage and he likes teasing Cas, and he really, honestly...just _could not_  care less that Sam and Gabe are just across the room - asleep with heads hanging against eachother, though they may be.

Cas hisses a breath out and weaves his fingers through Dean's hair.

Yeah, definitely enjoying this on both ends.

But then Cas' hand moves downward to the back of Dean's neck, then to his shirt collar, and Cas tugs Dean up by the fabric gathered greedily in his hand.

He stares Dean straight in his widened eyes and whispers in mock anger, "You should stop."

Dean simply smirks and finds Cas' lips with his own in the darkness of the room, his tongue lapping into Castiel's mouth easily. The kiss is familiar, one like they usually share, and Dean smiles into it because of that familiarity.

"Oh my god, would you two just fuck already," Gabe's voice emanates quietly, obviously quite annoyed, from across the room and Dean conceals a slight blush, though no one but Cas would be able to see it in the darkness.

"That obvious?" Cas jokes, his voice low and gravelly, and Dean swears he can fucking _hear_  Gabe's proud smirk.

"Shut up," Gabe retorts lamely, and when no other sound comes from across the room, Dean places an adoring peck of a kiss on Cas' cheek then moves back down and cuddles back in exactly where he was before.

He nips playfully once more at Cas' skin and stifles a laugh when Cas gasps.

"This is gonna be a long night, isn't it..." Cas grunts and Dean smiles into his skin, nodding slightly, his two-day-old stubble scraping Cas's side.

Cas squints down at Dean, then offers the smallest of smiles and Dean knows then and there, so absolutely, that he is Castiel's and Castiel is his.

And he wouldn't change that for the world.


	44. Jesus, The Amount Of Drama, I'm So Sorry

It's been four days since Castiel was admitted to the hospital for critical physical injuries, but now two nurses - one of which a very rock 'n' roll looking man who could be no more than a 25 year old shadow student - the surgeon who stitched Cas up, and several other people who are psychotherapists and pediatricians and psychologists, stand around in the already far too cramped room, talking about psychiatric hospitalisation.

"We find it extraordinarily rudimentary for the proper development of Castiel's mental and emotional and, by default, physical health that he possibly willingly seek medical and psychiatric attention. We will not be assiduous about the subject, but the fact of the matter is that...w-well if this happens again...Castiel _will_ be chaptered and he _will_  be forced into hospitalisation," the pediatric psychologist explains in a strangely soothing tone.

"I-I assure you, it is not of import. It won't happen again," Cas replies quickly.

The psychologist - her name is something like Jody(?) - sighs, and blinks downward at her clipboard. She purses her lips, bites them, fiddles with her pen - probably trying to find anything she can say that she hasn't yet said to persuade Cas.

When she obviously can't think of anything else to say, she turns to her co-worker and whispers something.

Jody turns back and offers a very sad smile that conveys toward Cas a far too archaic pity which Gabe fervently disagrees with.

Gabe knows that he looks at Castiel that way, too - like he's a kicked puppy whom no one will allow into their house and who doesn't know how to fend for himself. But he somehow...inexplicably...hates when anybody else looks at his little brother that way.

He suddenly realises how defensive he's become of his brother over the years. When Cas was born, he'd thrown a fit and screamed about no longer being the youngest and no longer receiving as much attention. But over the years, he's become increasingly more protective and possessive and it's finally showing through his tough outer shell.

"Don't look at him like that," Gabe mutters and when the woman says 'hm?' he stands resolvedly and raises his voice, enunciating each word with fervence. 

"Don't. Look. At. Him," he gets right up in the woman's face and spits the last word acidicly, his voice only a vehement whisper. "Like. That."

Her eyes are wide, now, and her breathing is choked as she tries fervently to seem calm and in charge.

"I...don't know what you're talking about, sir," she breathes, her voice shaking before she gulps down her fear then straightening up, clearing her throat, and repeating herself, more clearly. "I don't know what you mean."

"He's not a kicked puppy, right?" Gabe raises his eyebrows and watches Jody nod, then continues, animosity never faltering. "Then don't fucking treat him like one."

"Gabriel! That is _enough_!" Lucifer whisper shouts between gritted teeth from across the room.

Gabe squints once more and backs away, then pivots on his heel and walks back to Cas. When he gets to the bed, he sits gingerly on the edge and crosses his arms over his chest, staring down at his lap and pursing his lips outward.

Gabe hears Lucifer's clothes rustling as he moves from his spot leaning seemingly carelessly against the wall with his arms folded loosely over his chest and then his feet shuffling across the floor. He whispers with the nurse for a few seconds before they walk out into the hallway.

Sam glides over from his spot in the chair across the room and sneaks in behind Gabe to slide his arms gently around his waist.

Gabe breathes in and leans his head back against Sam's shoulder, staring at the empty doorway.

"What are we still doing here, Sam? Cas' arms are almost healed--"

"I'm right here, you ass," Cas interupts and Gabe stifles a smirk before continuing.

"Cas' arms are almost healed and they sure as hell aren't puttin' my little brother in a fuckin' mental house. So...why can't we all just go home? I mean, it's done. He's physically better, he will be mentally and emotionally better with some rest, which would happen more quickly if we were at home..." Gabe sighs and absent-mindedly plays with Sam's fingers, curling and straightening them, bending them sideways to the full extent, then intertwining them with his own.

Before Sam can even think of some kind of corny brush off joke, Dean, himself, walks in, making a face at the right side of the doorway where Lucifer and the staff must be speaking in quiet, heated voices.

Dean makes a fist and points his thumb over his left shoulder as he walks in and makes a confused face, turning his head slightly to gauge people's reactions in a sidelong view.

Nobody says anything for a very long time, exchanging frightened, worried glances and looking down at their laps.

"Seriously, guys...what's...goin' on," Dean finally asks and Gabe hides his face, leaving the answer to someone who can handle Dean's inevitable outrage.

"They, uh...the nurses and the-the psychologists..." Sam trails off and Sam's fingers tighten around Gabe's before the moose tries again. He releases Gabe's waist and starts walking cautiously toward Dean, holding out a hand as if to keep the older man calm, like Dean's a rabid dog or something.

He could probably pull that off, now that Gabe thinks about it.

"Look, Dean...they...they want to hospitalise Cas...they think he'd be able to get better sooner if he were in a controlled environment instead of...well, our house," Sam says composedly, knowing how to speak to Dean in these types of situations.

Obviously not well enough, though, because Dean's head perks up and his eyes become dark and dangerous.

Dean's hands become tight fists, his eyes close, and his lips become a thin line. He breathes in sharply, but Cas comes to the rescue.

Castiel gets out of the bed - _he gets out. Of the fucking bed_  - and walks - _walks_  - over to Dean. His legs kind of shake but at least he's wearing sweatpants again and not that flimsy fucking paper dress they call a hospital gown. He reaches out and grazes his hand over Dean's cheek. 

Dean's eyes open in surprise and when he looks down to see Cas, his eyebrows pull in in concern. His next words are whispered, for Cas' ears only, really.

Gabe can still hear them, though, and he must say, Dean's the best thing to happen to Cas since ever. 

"Baby, what are you doing. Get back to the bed; you shouldn't be walking around yet. It's not good for you," Dean pulls Cas into a tight, protective hug and kisses his forehead. Then he adds in a heartbreaking whisper, "I don't like seeing you like this, Cas."

Cas wraps a trembling arm around Dean's neck and Dean helps him walk back to the bed, probably holding most of Cas' faltering weight.

Dean releases Castiel, who drops heavily onto the bed and grunts, which makes Dean kind of smile, which makes Cas stick out his tongue.

"So, uh. I guess I was the only one Mike could contact because you fuckers all have your cellphones turned off--" Dean starts teasingly.

"It's a hospital, Dean," Sam calls from his spot now leaning back in the chair and Gabe brushes past Dean and plops down in Sam's lap, making Sam secrete from his mouth a frustrated, pained, and slightly sexual noise, which Dean laughs at, and Sam shoves Gabe off onto the chair next to him.

"Anyway," Dean tries again, "while you asshats were goofin' off, Mike called me. Said he needed a ride here from...uh..." Dean pauses and stifles a laugh, raising his eyebrows and trying to drown a smile by pulling the corners of his lips downward, then continues in a very amused, very shaky voice, "From play practice. I don't have my car here, I rode with you guys in the jeep."

"I'll run with Gabe to get him," Sam volunteers himself and Gabe squints his eyes at the moose, though he knows he's the only one who can really leave right now. Dean's obviously not gonna do it.

"Fine," Gabe whines and grabs Sam's hand.

He drags Sam out the door and through the lobby and drops into the drivers seat of the jeep.

Gabe looks over at Sam, winks, and starts the car.

This is gonna be an awkward car ride for Mike - he'll make sure of that.


	45. When Gabe Drives

Sam clamps his right hand around Gabe's left arm as Gabe makes a sharp-ass turn and laughs maniacally at Sam's grunt of frustration.

"Fuckin' slow down, you asshole," Sam half teases, half yells and Gabe just smiles at him. He slows down as they near a stop light and stops from a comfortable speed. 

"Slow enough for you, Moose?" Gabe asks, shifting his arm and sliding his fingers between Sam's.

Sam squints at Gabe, making a twisty, knotty face that he probably won't be able to recreate in the future, then turns his head to the windshield, straightens his posture in a small but flourishing motion, and raises his eyebrows so he looks pricky, like an old, rich person.

He opens his mouth and takes a dramatic breath in before speaking in a 'fancy' tone, "And they say chivalry is dead."

Gabe makes a huge gesture with his hand then bows to the full extent that he can while he's in a car, and replies, "The pleasure is all mine, dear lover."

Sam just snorts at that and smiles affectionately, possessively, at the other boy.

And God-fucking-damnit the man is so beautiful in this lighting - in any lighting, really - but Sam can't help but reach over with his left hand, the one that's not grasping Gabe's, and skim his fingers over the slight stubble on the blonde man's jaw.

Gabe offers a small smile and, without so much as glancing over as he takes off from the stoplight, he uses his right hand to place over the top of Sam's and leans into the touch. He yanks Sam's arm further over so Sam is basically sitting sideways, facing Gabe, and, in contrast to the abrupt pulling of Sam's arm, lands a gentle kiss in the palm of Sam's hand. 

Sam's face heats and he wants to tackle Gabriel; make him stop the car in the middle of the road and fuck him right there but he knows he really shouldn't. 

What he does do is slide his hand from between Gabe's own hand and his cheek, where it'd been replaced, and grazes it downward over Gabe's side - his neck, his shoulder, his ribs, his waist...his hip. 

"Sam, come on, what are you--" Gabe starts jokingly.

But then Sam's hand lands in a spot where it really should not be while Gabe is trying to drive on a highway, which is made evident by the way Gabe's eyes widen and he swerves twice before regaining focus.

"Sam. No. Not here," Gabe's voice is tight and tense, the tone of a heated debate between want and warning.

Sam scoots up closer and whispers in Gabe's ear, a greedy whine to his voice, "Why not, Gabe."

"Well," Gabriel's voice turns squeaky as Sam begins rubbing at Gabe's half-hard cock over his jeans. "For one, _I'm drivi_ \--" his sentence cuts off in a squirmy choke and he bites down hard on his lower lip before adding, "And two, Sam, Mike probably doesn't want to get into a car that smells like sweat and sex."

"Come on, Gabe. He won't say anything. He'll just sit there awkwardly like he does in any uncomfortable situation," Sam says in his regular voice then let's his tone become husky again as he adds, "Come on, baby. We haven't had any time alone to even just talk for almost a week. Pleeeaaassse?"

Gabe purses his lips in silent consent and barely nods his head before Sam is unzipping Gabe's jeans and, well...you know the rest.

By the time the two get to the university, Gabe is still trembling and trying frantically to zip up his jeans, and Sam is sporting the most ridiculously, provokingly, (lovingly) agitatingly sated smile ever on the face of the earth.

"You little prick," Gabe mutters and offers a small peck to Sam's cheek before he opens the door and runs inside to grab Michael.

"Love you too!" Sam calls out the window, smirking.

Sam sits back in his seat and his smile slowly evaporates as he is left alone with his thoughts - a dangerous thing that happens sometimes, and the reason he tries to be social and have friends, so he's not often alone. 

He knows he's depressed. He's been diagnosed with clinical depression by three different psychologists, and every single time, their explanation is that his mother died in a fire when he was a baby and he doesn't even remember her, and the mind can't make up a face or a personality - that's inarguably impossible; the mind does not have the mental, spacial, or emotional capacity to create a human face out of thin air. That's like god actually existing, just "creating" humans, Sam thinks.

He laughs each time he imagines it, too. An old man, standing on a white cloud, lifting his white robe, crouching down and simply shitting a human right out of ass and onto the green grass of a fucking flower field.

And so, the point, they think he's emotionally deprived of a mother figure and not having that special love in his life as he was growing up must have fucked him up somehow. 

He just doesn't want to end up like Cas, drinking all the time, constantly collapsing in tears into Gabe's and his brother's arms, bleeding himself out until they have to call an ambulance and he has to get stitches and then sit there in a hospital bed and listen to people yell at eachother about whether to hospitalise him or not.

Not that Cas is a bad guy. He's really gotten to know the boy over the last few months and...well, Sam's gotta say, Cas is a lot like himself. 

They both have dead mums, both have absent fathers, both are depressed as all fuck, and both have shrinks that are claiming the reason for depression is deceased family. 

And, oh god, Sam does drink. Not as much as Cas but about half as much and it's still getting there. 

He doesn't get the chance to get too deep into that thought before he hears a pair of rather loud voices outside and the driver's door clicks open and Gabe swings himself into the seat.

Gabe immediately leans in and surprises Sam by kissing him passionately - open mouth and tongue wrestling and everything - and all probably just to piss off Mike, who sits now, squirming uncomfortably, in the back seat of the jeep.

Gabe looks back at his brother and winks, smirking in a way that almost annoys even Sam. 

"Just drive, you pompous twat," Michael growls through gritted teeth, lowering his eyes and huffing. 

"Always so _conservative_ , Michael," Gabe jokes and flips him off.

Sam raises his eyebrows and laughs a small, high pitched laugh before offering Michael an apologetic smile and turning around in his seat.

The ride back to the hospital is all suggestive jokes, surprise kisses, holding hands, and an obnoxiously uncomfortable Michael.


	46. Chuck Shurley Is Such a Bother

Dean watches Gabe leave, Sam in tow and attached to Gabe's hand as per fucking usual. 

Dean smiles though, knowing how good Gabe is for Sam. And how well, how carefully, how secretly Gabe was able to glue Sam back together and still is, piece by piece. He's probably the only thing holding Sam up that way, too.

He turns to Cas and offers a gentle smile, which fades almost immediately when he sees Cas' look of pure agony.

"Baby, what's goin' on?" He whispers and sits on the edge of the bed. 

Dean runs his fingers through Cas' hair and frowns a puppy dog-esque frown. 

"Hm?" Cas lifts his aquamarine blue eyes as if he's startled, and after a second, Dean guesses that he actually is.

Dean raises his eyebrows anyway and asks quietly, "You okay?"

"Oh. Yes, Dean, I'm fine. I promise, I was just--"

"LET ME SEE MY SON!" A very familiar and rather unexplainably aggravating voice yells from the hallway. 

Dean hadn't noticed the commotion that had bubbled up outside the doorway but now pulls his brows in and his hunters green {pun definitely intended} eyes search the empty doorway.

"Cas, stay here," Dean says, because while it might seem to anyone else that he won't be going anywhere without a wheelchair anytime soon, Dean knows a hell of a lot better, and that Cas may just try to walk again - which he shouldn't be doing because he's weak from not eating and from blood loss.

Dean tiptoes across the room to the doorway and peeks his head out slightly, pulling back in and turning to Cas slowly, a look of outraged distress twisting his features, when he gets even the slightest glimpse of who it is. 

"Cas," Dean starts composedly through gritted teeth. "I need you to stay here, okay?"

Cas cowers in the bed and a tear streaks down his face - he obviously already understands who it is - but he somehow musters the energy to nod.

Dean struts out into the hallway, a blank stare curtaining his features and a tenaciously appalled scream caught in his throat.

He walks toward the accumulation of assorted nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and security guards, and clears his throat.

"Winchester. Get out of my way, you abominating pervert," Chuck growls, squinting at Dean.

"You are not seeing Castiel, ever. You do not deserve to see him, nor do you deserve him as a son. You are an incompetent asshole with nothing better to do with your pathetic, waste of space life, than to stomp on and shatter your own son's feelings, invalidate his consequential behaviours, and sweep aside his aspirations like they are trash. Like he's a piece of shit. But that's where my earlier statement comes in; you're the piece of shit, Chuck. You're the one who doesn't know how to have a son, how to allow a child into your life, and that makes you inexplicably incapable of being an actual father. Incapable of seeing your son. And you want to know who caused all this?" Dean says all this calmly, resolvedly, his voice unwavering, and now, he takes several composed steps forward and shoves his finger against Chuck's sternum. "You. He wanted to die. Because of you. And now? You have the fucking nerve...to show up here and request to visit your son - the same one!" Dean pauses again and laughs defensively, a short, choky laugh, that comes out in a harsh breath. "The same. One. That you made insecure and suicidal. So, no. You don't _ever_. Get to see him. Because you do not deserve him."

A long sentence of silence hangs in the now still air that rests between them and that wraps itself loosely around them and weaves between the hospital staff.

It crawls around on the floor and snakes over everyone's skin, becoming a constricting, tingly animal that makes Chuck squirm in his spot facing Dean, trying to seem like he's still the boss after Dean's ceremonial incantation.

"You pathetic little bitch...you don't even know what to say to that. Wanna know why?" Dean accuses, searching the man's eyes for any sign that he may back down. When he is greeted with silence, as he'd expected, he whispers the next few words, spitting them from his mouth like venom. "Because you don't know how to be a parent and you don't know how to be a smartass. You're lying to yourself, Chuck. You're an illiterate fuck with no answers to anything, especially not to your own abhorrent situation. Get. Out."

"Fuck you!" Chuck shouts, acrid words he uses as poison - poison that doesn't affect Dean in the least.

"Maybe later, honey. Right now, I can't leave Cas because I'm the only thing holding him together, you _disgusting. swine_ ," the words turn sour in Dean's mouth and slither out through his lips as a discordantly indignant snake.

Chuck makes a final face, making himself look like he might growl. But he just pivots on his heel and saunters away.

The staff members purse their lips, wipe their brows, close their eyes and lean against the wall. Anything to pretend like they didn't just witness what they witnessed.

Dean turns and seeks a pair of very small, very frightened blue eyes peeping from around the doorframe.

"Cas, what did I tell you," Dean whispers sadly, rushing to hold Cas up, because God knows he needs to or Cas might collapse onto the floor instead of into Dean's arms. "Baby, come on. Come here."

For the second time that day, Dean helps that stubborn little weirdo - _his_  stubborn little weirdo - back to the hospital bed.

"I'm sorry Dean, I just...I don't know this time. I don't have an excuse," Cas whispers, lowering his eyes, then his head.

"Ah, ah. Nooo no no no no no," Dean scolds tilting Cas' head back up and pulling in his own eyebrows. "Cas, you gotta stop that."

Cas raises his brows, looking so innocently confused, but Dean knows better than that.

This is gonna be a long day.


	47. Because Dean Promised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ❗️NEARING THE END, MATES. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE OF YOU WHO'VE BEARED WITH ME THIS PAST MONTH IN THE CREATION OF THIS FANFIC❗️

"Dean, I don't know what you mean," Cas whispers, his eyebrows still raised.

"'Don't know what I mean', my ass, Cas," Dean says gently, sitting, now, on the edge of the bed and running his hand back over Cas's hair.

Cas likes the feeling of Dean's hand in his hair, of Dean's lips against his forehead, of Dean's skin skimming his own. It gives him a tingly feeling where Dean touches him and in a place that's kind of innapropriate while he's still in his current situation. 

"I don't like making you mad..." Cas finally replies, only a whisper that slips quietly past his lips and floats around in the room, eventually tiptoeing into Dean's ears.

"Cas," Dean breathes, incredulity ever-present. "I'm not..." Dean pauses to laugh and presses a kiss to Cas' forehead again before continuing. "Cas, I'm not mad at you. I could never be... _mad_ , so to speak. I get frustrated and you annoy me most of the time, because, let's face it, I'm just not as into talking about honey bees at two in the morning as you obviously are." 

Cas smiles at this and, judging by the heat that rushes to his face, blushes too.

"But," Dean continues and Cas looks back up through heavy lashes, "I could never be mad at you. Sure, you don't know why you got out of the bed again, but, Cas...it's not some sort of law that you can't. You're not physically well, and it upsets me that you push your body past it's breaking point just to see me yelling at your dad...Cas, my point is, I'm not mad. So don't ever think I am," Dean's voice wavers slightly and he tangles his fingers in Cas's hair, searching the boy's phthalocyanine blue eyes and smiling. Then he boops Cas' nose in the cutest fucking way, making Cas stifle the hugest, most idiotic grin he's ever had to stifle, and Dean adds, still smiling, "And stop it with the...shame-guilt-sad-lowering your head thing. It breaks my heart, buddy.

Cas tugs at Dean's shirt collar and Dean complies silently, letting Castiel drag him downward and curling easily around Cas - yes, easily, because they were meant to be together from the start; because Cas' body fits perfectly against Dean's; because every breath Cas has ever taken, every step and every gesture and every movement and every word and every tear and every tantrum as a child and every sip of alcohol and every drag of a cigarette and every self-invalidating thought and every stifled gasp of air in the shower while he cried so hard he couldn't breath or stand and every blissful night of silence when his father wasn't home and every time his father was home so the entire neighbourhood was up until three in the morning listening to the yelling and every verbal or physical strike from his own father and every wink and nod and kiss and faked smile and teasing joke and playful punch and...every. Blink. Of his blue eyes. Has lead him up to this. This place and this time. And everything he's ever done has lead him here. And nothing he could have ever done in the past would have lead him away from Dean's loving arms, his comforting warmth, his peaceful breaths and his nauseatingly beautiful smiles and his passionate words and his patient ears. And both of them have been waiting for this exact moment, whether they knew it or not. They've been waiting to fall into eachother since they were born.

And now, Cas has to hear it again, has to hear those words roll from Dean's tongue, probably not for the last time.

"Dean?" Cas breathes, imperceptible to anyone but the one he wants to hear it.

"Yes, Cas?" Dean responds after a very long pause, one where he seems to have been breathless for a short period of time.

And Cas thinks he gets that, because when Dean says Cas's name, Cas' skin crawls, and his eyes light up, and he can almost feel his pupils dilating to an extraordinarily inhuman diametre. And maybe that happens to Dean too.

"Don't leave," Cas whispers, even more quiet than his previous words and he turns his head, twisting his body to gauge Dean's reaction, finding only a calm smile and waiting eyes made of caressing feathers and kindness and love. And Cas believes Dean's silent answer, but just for good measure, he adds in a more resilient voice, "Ever."

It comes out stronger and more desperate than he intended, but Dean obviously doesn't care because he leans over, craning his neck, and kisses Cas gently, letting his lips slide against Cas's and just barely opening his mouth, tentative and careful, like the first time they kissed. And Cas loves it.

Dean pulls back, only a centimetre and grins, before taking a breath and straightening his face so it's more serious.

"Never," Dean says, still trying to suppress his smile. 

But when Cas frowns a little, Dean takes the boy's cheeks in his hands and holds his face in place, his brows dropping over his olive green eyes, which squint at Cas.

"Cas, I mean it," Dean adds then plants another kiss to Cas' forehead and repeats himself. "Never."

Castiel widens eyes and peeks up at Dean through a curtain of eyelashes and a light coating of tears.

"Promise me," Cas says, and he feels like a two year old again, feels like he's back in time, that one evening when he sat with Gabriel in the older boy's room, begging Gabe to never tell a soul about dad punching his ribs.

And he watches Dean's eyebrows pull up and Dean's eyes turn red and teary and Dean's lips tremble. And Cas thinks that maybe Dean knows. Maybe he knows exactly what Cas is remembering because Cas has told Dean about it and because Dean knows by now the look Cas glues I his face when he's remembering something like that.

Dean smiles a doleful smile, one he reserves for Sam and Cas only, Castiel knows.

Then he nods and whispers, "I promise, Cas."

And now, Cas shifts quickly and folds Dean into a tight hug, grunting at the surprising amount force exerted from his own body.

Maybe they would be together, always...like Dean's promised.

And...just maybe...everything would be okay...like Dean's promised.

Cas smiles assuredly.

Yes. Because Dean promised. 


	48. Seven Years Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guys, I'm actually kind of scared, help. Like. This has kept me so busy and distracted over the past month and I'm done writing it...and now I don't have anything to do because this was basically my entire life for the past few weeks. So like ???? I don't know what to do next, hE Lp

Dean struts into the kitchen of his and Cas' new loft in a custom fitted tux, plastering onto his face his best - trademark - "Smolder Smile". 

But when he does, he sees the ever-heartbreaking sight of Cas leaning into his arms, his hands gripping either side of the sink, hunched over into the carbon fiber of the watery square.

Dean can tell Cas is crying - or at least sniffling - because Cas' back is moving in and out a little too quickly with his breathing. 

He approaches carefully, reaching out a tentative hand - just like he used to when they were teens - and it lands on Cas' lower back. When Dean's body catches up to his hand, he snakes his arm the rest of the way around Cas' waist, lifts him away from the sink, and scoots between Cas and the counter.

Dean tilts Cas' chin up with his index finger so Cas will look at him and finds that Cas' eyes are, indeed, puffy and red.

Dean feels his features twist downward into a frown and he kisses Castiel's lips in the passionate, amiable, and incredibly concernedly affectionate way that's grown so familiar to both of them over the years.

He searches Cas' peculiar blue eyes before speaking.

"Cas, you okay?" His voice is much shakier than he intended to let on and he nearly groans, still vexed by his inability to hide weakness from Cas, who brings the truth out of him, no matter the circumstance, and at his emotions in general.

"Yes, I'm fine," Cas mumbles, bringing his balled up hands up to his neck, just below his chin, closing his eyes, and burying his face in Dean's collarbone.

Dean rolls his eyes efficaciously and reiterates in a slightly snarky tone, "That was a stupid question. Let me rephrase it: You're not okay, Cas."

"I'm okay, Dean, I promi--" Cas tries to insist but Dean knows better.

"You're not. 'Kay? You're the farthest thing... _from_." Dean pulls Cas' head back and stares at him incredulously, pleading for Cas to just. Fucking. Tell. Him. Castiel rolls his eyes, mimicking Dean, before pulling away and making a flourishing gesture with his hands. He holds his arms outward and walks away toward the refrigerator, only his head and eyes turned toward Dean as he waltzes dramatically across the room and plasters a very obviously fake smile across his face.

"Dean. Look at me. This is me... _being okay_ ," Cas persists but his eyes are still red and his lips and voice are still trembling and his breaths are still shaky and quick.

And Cas' amazing ability to irk Dean runs deep and remains rooted. Dean fists his hands before grabbing Cas by the waist, pulling him in, and kissing him roughly.

"You're mine, you little shit. And your argument is archaic and, frankly, rather annoying. Now, tell me what the fuck is going on in that pretty head of yours," Dean's accusation becomes softer as he speaks and by the end of it, his voice is almost an imperceptible whisper brushed against Cas forehead.

Cas's hesitation is actually _laughably_  ridiculous to Dean. He nearly does laugh as he watches Cas bite his lower lip in reluctance.

When Cas finally speaks Dean almost laughs again, this time hysterically, because, while Cas' anxiety is not something he can get rid of and Dean completely validates his fears, it's still absurdly contemptible.

"It's just..." Cas starts digging around in his jeans pocket and Dean is surprised he hadn't noticed the shape jutting out before. "I got this...its for you...I just...I thought you might say yes but then I realised I'm not nearly good enough for you and you'd probably say no and I...I don't know, I just started crying and I don't know how to describe to you, Dean, the obnoxious amount of anxiety I felt and the self-deprecating thoughts that just kind of...punched their way back into my head and then swam around in there for hours. Because I love you, and I want you...so desperately...to love me the way I love you."

Dean stares at the singular, gold-plated ring resting delicately in Castiel's palm, just waiting, begging, for Dean to say yes and put it on.

Dean's eyes begin to water and they twitch back up to catch Cas' own teary eyes in incredulity.

"Well, holy shit Cas...you shoulda just asked..." Dean breathes, his arms becoming looser by the minute around Cas' waist. "You sho--"

Castiel interupts Dean - rather rudely, but still sweetly - by kissing him. Hard. Biting and sucking on Dean's lower lip, lapping his tongue into Dean's mouth and grazing his teeth over Dean's jaw.

When Cas pulls away, Dean lets out a breath, his eyes wide and lips parted and glistening with saliva, and his eyebrows raised.

Cas' lips move, his mouth opening and closing in an attempt to find words and it's kind of adorable what he says when he does speak.

"I...I'm sorry I don't know where that came from--"

"Cas?"

This gets him to stop talking before he starts rambling about his supposed incompetence and Dean smiles lovingly before speaking again.

"I really could not care less where it came from...I liked it. I like dominant you, it's..." Dean lets out a short, choked, breathy laugh and glances down, raising his eyebrows before nodding and adding, "It's pretty hot."

Cas just blushes and suppresses an auspicious smirk.

"I'm going to take that as an indirect yes," Cas whispers, then gingerly picks up the ring, takes Dean's offered hand, and slides the ring onto Dean's finger.

Dean gasps, nearly cries, when he realises the ring fits perfectly. But he brushes off the heaviness of the fact that Cas somehow got Dean's finger sized without him knowing with one of the sappy jokes Cas seems to love.

"How'd you get my size, you perv? Watching me sleep?" Dean smiles at Cas' rarely invoked giggle and curls his hand around Cas's neck, pulling him in to lean their foreheads together.

"Maybe," Castiel whispers contentedly and nuzzles Dean's nose with his own.

Dean captures Cas' lips in a lazy kiss and they stand there, bathed in the light of an open window and a beautiful autumn day, lips locked and eyes closed and breaths calm. 

And it's all so much more beauitful than Dean could have ever imagined.

 

****

 

Dean watches Cas leave the kitchen and smiles at the back of the little bastard's head. 

He waits until he hears the front door close behind Cas then pulls out his phone and grins, shaking his head. 

He presses 1, speed dial.

The other line opens up and a sleepy voice greets him - sleepy because the damn voice apparently still likes to sleep in until 11 in the morning.

"Hey, bitch," Dean breathes, a toothy grin twisting his face.

"Dean? You jerk! You haven't called in a month!" Sam's voice is simply surprised at first but raises as he speaks and Dean pulls the phone away from his ear, raising his eyebrows and pursing his lips.

He shakes his head and puts the phone back up to his ear, hoping Sam doesn't yell again, because that's kind of fucking annoying.

"Well, that's because you're never awake when I am, you twat. I could slap you upside the head, but we don't have the technology yet that would let me reach through the phone and do it," Dean explains, a grin plastered to his cheeks.

"Come get me, asshole," Sam retorts, and Dean can hear the smile in his voice, too. So much fun...just like they always used to have.

"I'm not driving a hundred and sixty-eight kilometres just to beat your ass, you little chimp."

"Would you shut up, already? You didn't just call me to gripe about who's gonna beat up whom."

"Sammy, I'm gettin' married," Dean says it outright, not caring what Sam might say, and ignoring the moose's apparently vehement need to advocate grammar Naziism.

When Sam doesn't say...well, anything...for a while Dean thinks he might have hung up.

But then he hears Sam shifting, turning his mouth away from the phone and yelling at Gabe to 'put down the Halloween candy and the spider-clown costume and get his ass into the living room'.

"Dean, please tell me I'm invited--"

"Sam your my fucking best man, what the hell else would you be."

Sam's laughter emanating from the other end makes Dean smile and he knows this wedding is going to be the best day of his life.

Or maybe the second best.

He can't decide between that and  the day he met his almost _offensively_ stubborn, precariously honey-bee obsessed, curiously blue-eyed, slightly alcoholic angel.


	49. One Year After That Proposal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well...here it is, guys. I love you all so much, and thank you to those of you who have stuck with me the entire way through and who have experienced this journey with me. So...I present to you...the last chapter of my very first fanfic with chapters... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I read through this to fix bugs, like I do with every chapter, and I guess I subconsciously made it better than the rest of them just because it's the "finale". I say this because when I read through it - and I'm one of the most modest people on this planet - I got SHIVERS. I CRIED, GUYS. MY HEART WAS POUNDING. MY OWN WRITING MADE MY LIPS SHAKE. IM SORRY BUT THIS IS BEAUITFUL, IF I DARE SAY SO MYSELF

Gabe pulls away from the hug and smiles at Cas. 

"You break my heart, kiddo, ya know that?" Gabe chuckles and Cas smiles before Gabe adds teasingly, "Kudos on your new husband, lil' bro. He's a catch."

He shakes his little brother once more then walks away and searches the crowd for his own boyfriend, and, spotting him leaning against the bar counter with a beer in his hand, smirks and glides over to greet him.

"Weddings make me sick, Sammoose," he calls as he approaches, getting dirty looks from some people, but not all because a lot are his family and they know how he feels about most things and never try to intervene. But Sam glances up and gives Gabe a squinty-eyed, fake smile look.

Despite the vexed look, Gabe wiggles up beside Sam and pastes a smirk to his lips.

"Have you tasted the hors d'œuvres, yet, Samsquatch?" He snarks, enunciating the French words with mock grace.

Sam rolls his eyes and huffs, his lips pursing outward, and Gabe has to suppress a giggle because Sam's 'leave me alone dimples' are showing.

"Oh, you love me," Gabe teases and hangs his head against Sam's shoulder, who, despite his obvious annoyance, snuggles the side of his face into Gabe's hair. 

"Gabe, I've been thinking," Sam says suddenly and startles Gabe's anxiety reflex, which, evidently, has grown over these past eight years.

"You don't say?" Gabe tries to brush off his concern and it works, because Sam rolls his eyes and Gabe smiles.

"Gabe, I'm serious. I've been...thinking and wondering and imagining and day-dreaming over these past few months and...and, well, this wedding's got--"

"Sam..." Gabe's voice is no longer playful, and he knows damn well that it's made Sam's stomach drop, because he feels Sam flinch...because that voice is warning and dangerous and Sam knows it well enough to shut up. 

And now Gabe feels guilty as hell.

He sighs and turns to face Sam, his hand landing gently on Sam's cheek and his burning, shining golden gaze on Sam's lips, nose, his own hazel-green eyes, which have become progressively closer to the shade of his brother's eyes over the years.

"Sam..." Gabe tries, trailing off and looking away. "Sam, I love you, and you know that - you better fucking know that by now - and I want to be with you forever. But..." He shakes his head. 

At some point during the billionth excuse that Gabe has tried and failed to coagulate, Sam must have looked away, because he is currently doing so, and in a rather demure and disconcerting manner.

Gabe presses his finger to Sam's chin and tries to get the moose to look back at him.

"Baby," he whispers, a very seldom used nickname for them at this point, thus, a remarkable, powerful, and quite emotional one. "Sam, come on."

Sam backs away a step from Gabe, from his touch, turns around, takes a single step forward, and pauses. He pivots on his heel, an accusing and hurt look on his voice, one like Gabe has never seen twisted into those delicate features before, one that shoots gabriel with guilt, fills his soul with a wrenching nausea, clutches at his heart with anxiety-poisoned claws, pools his eyes with trembling tears. 

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't supposed to happen, not here, not like this.

"Sam," Gabe's voice is tiny, cowering in the shadows of his mouth, much smaller than he'd intended.

"Gabe, I don't know...how to deal with this anymore, I can't understand why you...I can't..." His breathing is quick and heavy. He's trying so hard to voice what's happening in his mind but - and this is one of the reasons Gabe fell in love with this Sasquatch of a man in the first place - Sam's thoughts are far too deep, far too many, and far too quick for his lips to communicate them.

Gabe closes his eyes, a brimming tear quietly sneaking over his lower eyelid and diving down his cheek, and he wills Sam to not be angry, wills his life to not be like this, wills _himself_...to stop being such an absolute asshole. 

A sudden urge, that's not been brought upon him by guilt or shame, surprisingly, builds inside of him. 

He suddenly... _wants_  to get married.

 _What the hell is this?_  He pulls his brows downward and opens his eyes. Is this what Sam felt, when he realised he wanted to marry Gabe? Is this the feeling of complete and absolute _need_  he'd gotten?

Gabe decides it must have been. 

And it's indescribable, and he doesn't know what's come over him, this urge, and these thoughts, and he doesn't understand where they've come from but he's kind of enjoying them, and he doesn't want these images barreling through his mind to ever leave. These images of the life he and Sam could have together.

Gabe and Sam, reclined against the soft, white sand of a private beach on the coast of Virginia, holding hands and pointing up at the fluffy, happy white clouds with their free hands. Gabe and Sam, strolling down the sidewalk in the centre of a bustling city, Sam's left hand holding a little girl's tiny right hand, a little girl who has to reach above her own head to grab one of her daddy's hands, a little boy hanging on to Gabriel's right hand with his left one and the two toddlers holding hands between the two men, and Sam glancing over at Gabe, sharing sneaky, loving looks that imply obviously to everyone around them that they'd much rather be alone. Gabe and Sam, sitting back in white bar stools at a white island in a white kitchen with all white furniture, holding hands over the table with the same two children between them, colouring with crayons, dragging the coloured wax over the blank paper and creating something beautiful and holding it up, waving it in each of their dads' faces, a tiny-toothed, innocent grin spreading over their lips, watching their dads' own proud smirks.

Gabe and Sam, falling asleep together on the couch, heads leaned in against eachother, holding hands, tv flickering silently against their faces, not really asleep...but still dreaming.

Gabe registers that Sam has started walking away again only when he sees the shoulder length brown hair - which the man's surprisingly maintained throughout the years - bobbing between two people and out the door.

Gabe runs after him, mumbling empty apologies and meaningless 'excuse me's' on his way through the crowd and out the door.

He stumbles out into the frigid night air, stars shining bright in the sky and in Sam's greenish eyes. 

Those damn eyes, he can see them from across this - admittedly short - distance and under the dark velvet curtain of a November night. 

Sam leans against the balcony that overlooks a beautiful scene: the calm, spirited ocean, lapping silently up against the grainy sand and the trees surrounding the small beach swaying in whatever breeze there may be.

Sam faces inward, toward the tent that houses the after-party, a grim look disturbing his face, his arms folded across his chest protectively. He stares, unseeingly, uncomprehendingly, at the concrete that separates the balcony from the grass, and he just...goddamnit all if he doesn't look so fucking beautiful in that fucking tux.

Gabe's wanted all night to pull that tall man in by the tie and kisses him breathless, fuck him senseless. 

But now he walks slowly toward Sam, not sure if he's going to bite Gabe's head off - metaphorically and literally. 

"I don't feel much of an obligation to speak to you right now, Gabe," Sam speaks accusingly, his steady monotone not quite masking his trembling breaths.

"You're pissed--"

"Damn right I am, Gabe!" Sam yells and looks up, a more pleading look in his eyes now.

"Sam, I--"

"Yeah, Gabe," Sam interupts again, spitting the words from his lips like they're acrid venom that he needs to rid his mouth of. Gabe may like dominant Sam, but he...definitely...doesn't like these words that are being said. To him. Of all people. But fuck everything if he thinks he doesn't deserve it. Sam continues, his voice becoming increasingly sour, and Gabe almost regrets running after him. Almost. 

"Yeah, I fuckin' know. 'Marriage is just something that I can't do right now. Commitment isn't my thing'...I..." Sam stops, the words he'd mocked, the ones that had fallen from Gabe's own mouth billions of times before, hanging in the whistling air between them. Sam steps closer, turning his head, a sideways regard in his eyes and continues. "I know. Gabe, I fucking know because you've said that to me...a trillion times before, said...those exact words to me, given me the exact same excuse...for _years_...now. _Years_ , Gabe. And I don't...I _can't_  understand why..."

Sam doesn't finish his rant but Gabe knows perfectly well what he's trying to say.

"Sam. Listen. To. Me," Gabe tailors his voice, altering his demeanour to imitate Sam's. "I wasn't done talking." He steps forward, reaching his arms out and, despite Sam's back-stepping and head-shaking and chest-shoving, wraps said arms around Sam's waist, who, in spite of aforementioned behaviour, seems to relax - _melt_  - into Gabe. Gabe's voice becomes more gentle as he adds, "Sam, I want to get married. To you. Not out of guilt, or pity, or your obvious spite towards my mental stability," Gabriel jokes light-heartedly before continuing in his more serious fashion, "but out of love and want. Because I closed my eyes and when I did, I saw what our life could be like, everything we could be and have. And I want what I saw. And I don't know if what I felt is what you felt when you realised you wanted to be married and I don't know if you saw whatever I saw, but I know what I imagined and I know I want it. Desperately."

Sam doesn't answer for a long, long time and Gabe starts to worry. Irrational worry, he knows by now, but worry, nevertheless.

He peeks up at Sam, whose smile obliterates any sadness, anger, despair, dismay, distress, disappointment, whatever...that had ever been there before and it dominates his face like the darkness of a solar eclipse shadowing the earth.

"Gabe, are you--"

"Yes," Gabe responds simply, such a small word for such a powerful and definite answer. 

Sam buries his face in Gabe's hair and Gabriel can feel the smile still plastered to Sam's face.

"I love you so fucking much, you asshole," Sam mumbles and they both laugh. 

Maybe there's happy endings, after all...


End file.
